The Princeton Review ranked both the undergraduate and graduate entrepreneurship programs at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Business among the top 25 in the nation, according to UW officials.

The graduate and undergraduate entrepreneurship programs were ranked 19 and 23, respectively, according to the list compiled by The Princeton Review.

The Princeton Review evaluated around 2,000 programs total across the country for the two lists, said David Soto, director of College Ratings & Rankings for The Princeton Review.

Princeton Review compiled the list using statistics gathered from around 75 databases and analyzed academics and requirements, students and faculty in the programs at each university and opportunities for students outside of the classroom, Soto said.

The amount of financial assistance available to students also contributed to UW’s high rankings, Soto said. This past year, Soto said UW offered $80,000 to students in the graduate program and $27,500 to undergraduates in the form of scholarships.

UW made both lists because it has faculty with a substantial amount of actual practice, said Dan Olszewski, director of UW’s Weinert Center of Entrepreneurship.

Olszewski said he was very pleased UW was the only Big 10 school to be included in the rankings for both graduate and undergraduate lists.

According to the surveys, the University of Michigan and Northwestern University were the only other Big Ten schools to make the lists, both of which were among the top graduate schools at numbers three and sixteen respectively.

Doug Bradley, the director for the Office of Corporate Relations in the UW Business School, which runs the Wiscontrepreneur program, attributed UW’s inclusion on both lists to the blend of traditional classroom curriculum and out-of-classroom exposure students in the Wiscontrepreneur program receive.

Bradley also said he was not aware of many other universities who conduct their entrepreneurship programs in the same way.

According to Olszewski competitions, student organizations and guest speakers are some out-of-classroom activities students are exposed to.

These programs as well as the Student Business Incubator and mentoring program are seeds planted that will eventually grow the levels of entrepreneurship among students and faculty alike on campus, Bradley said.

Bradley said he believes the rankings and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation grants UW recently received are major contributors for entrepreneurship among students.

“The results of these lists are vindication of effort and energy the campus is putting into entrepreneurship,” Bradley said.

He said he also believes both entrepreneurship programs will be higher on the lists in years to come.

UW currently offers 27 unique courses available for entrepreneurship, according to Soto. Olszewski said this selection is currently expanding and is available to students not majoring in business.

Although only about 50 students major or minor in the entrepreneurship program – with only 10 at the Master of Business Administration level – hundreds of students take courses offered by the program, Olszewski said.

This is the eighth year the lists for top entrepreneurship programs were compiled. According to The Princeton Review, the top entrepreneurship program among graduate schools is Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., while the University of Houston has the top program for undergraduates.