top of the class

8 prestigious Texas colleges score top rankings for entrepreneurship

University of Texas at Dallas scores a place on the list.

Texas is home to some the best business and entrepreneurship programs in the country, according to an annual report.

Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine ranked Houston's Rice University as the No. 1 graduate entrepreneurship program in the United States for 2022, and the University of Houston claimed the top spot on the undergraduate ranking. Both lists ranked the top 50 programs.

While UH and Rice held the top spots, several other Texas schools saw some movement on the lists this year. These Texas schools appeared on the list of the top 50 undergraduate entrepreneurship programs, including a couple in Dallas-Fort Worth:

The University of Texas at Austin, No. 4 (up from No. 24 last year)
Baylor University, No. 9 (down from No. 7 last year)
Texas Tech University, No. 12
University of Texas at Dallas, No. 24 (down from No. 18 last year)
Texas Christian University, No. 37 (down from No. 27 last year)
Texas A&M University-College Station, No. 41 (down from No. 35 last year)

Aside from Rice, these Texas schools made the list of the top 50 graduate entrepreneurship programs:

University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business, No. 5 (up from No. 6 last year)
University of Texas at Dallas, Naveen Jindal School of Management, No. 11 (down from No. 10 last year)
Texas A&M University-College Station, Mays School of Business, No. 26 (same as last year)

The Princeton Review based its 2022 rankings on a survey of leaders at over 300 schools with entrepreneurship studies. More than 40 data points were factored in to develop the rankings, which were released online on November 16 and will be published in the December issue of Entrepreneur magazine.

"The value of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial thinking continues to grow in our daily lives," says Jason Feifer, editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine, in the press release. "We're now seeing Americans start businesses at the fastest rate in a decade. By sharing this list, we want to continue to provide the much-needed information that people are looking for to forge their path to entrepreneurship. This list is a valuable reference tool for where future leaders can attain the knowledge, community and training grounds to succeed on that path."

It's the third No. 1 ranking for Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University — and the sixth year in the top three and the 13th year in which it has ranked in the top 10 on this prestigious list. The program's graduates have raised more than $693 million in funding for their companies over the past five years, per the report.

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A version of this story originally appeared on our sister site InnovationMap.

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Big Business

11 booming Dallas-Fort Worth companies zoom to top of Inc. 5000

Dallas Texas Downtown Drone Skyline Aerial

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Allen-based Yantran is riding the information technology wave all the way to the top of the Inc. 5000’s 10 fastest-growing private companies.

With three-year revenue growth of 258,740 percent, the company appears at No. 3 on this year’s Inc. 5000 list. The prestigious 2026 list ranks private companies based on percentage revenue growth from 2022 to 2025.

Yantran, founded in 2022, is an IT services, technology consulting, and AI-driven product development company. It ranks as the No. 1 fastest-growing IT services company in the U.S., as well as the No. 1 fastest-growing company in Texas and the Metroplex. It's joined by 10 other booming Dallas-Fort Worth businesses in the top 250.

The honorees will be recognized October 14-16 at the 2026 Inc. 5000 Conference & Gala, which will be held in Dallas. The other Dallas-Fort Worth companies at the top of the list are:

No. 12 Paek Management Group, 12,520 percent (Irving)
No. 82 Elite Robotics and Automation, 3,334 percent (Fort Worth)
No. 133 Outamation, 2,291 percent (Southlake)
No. 147 Red Creek Solutions, 2,119 percent (Frisco)
No. 155 JobTread Software, 2,071 percent (Dallas)
No. 164 DAX Eyewear, 1,977 percent (Nevada)
No. 186 Optimized Waste Removal, 1,830 percent (Fort Worth)
No. 204 Freight Flex, 1,642 percent (Denton)
No. 212 Maverick Power, 1,591 percent (McKinney)
No. 229 Innovative Life Sciences, 1,494 percent (McKinney)

The Metroplex leads Texas with the most companies in the top 250 of this year's Inc. 5000. DFW is followed by Austin (10 companies); Houston (seven companies); and San Antonio , El Paso, and Amarillo (one company each):

Austin

No. 9 Investment Watches, 15,741 percent
No. 72 Razor Metrics, 3,856 percent
No. 91 Autonomize AI, 2,921 percent
No. 102 Choose Your Horizon, 2,719 percent
No. 132 Wander Staffing, 2,296 percent
No. 144 Everyday Dose, 2,179 percent
No. 148 NetRise, 2,118 percent
No. 163 Nutrabound Labs, 1,999 percent (Bastrop)
No. 179 Steadily, 1,890 percent
No. 208 Tiny Health, 1,624 percent

Houston

No. 3 Epique Realty, 23,210 percent
No. 27 Empact Technologies, 8,275 percent
No. 60 Action1, 4,512 percent
No 75 Signs By G, 3,684 percent
No. 79 The ’Pause Life, 3,469 percent (Galveston)
No. 110 Turtlebox Audio, 2,576 percent
No. 178 Dahnani Private Equity Group, 1,904 percent (Stafford)

San Antonio

No. 118 Hire With Near, 2,421 percent

El Paso

No. 80, LEH Homes, 3,438 percent

Amarillo

No. 249, Optimum Rope Access Solutions, 1,361 percent

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A version of this article originally appeared on our sister site, InnovationMap.com.

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