What is limiting entrepreneurship education?

Volume 10, Issue 6, December 2025     |     PP. 299-343      |     PDF (442 K)    |     Pub. Date: November 14, 2025
DOI: 10.54647/education880635    14 Downloads     125 Views  

Author(s)

Fregetto E, University of Illinois, Chikago, USA

Abstract
This paper employs a framework of eight truisms to analyze how higher education institutions design and deliver entrepreneurship courses and programs. These truisms capture the dominant logic underlying the traditional university approach to curriculum design—an approach that has served the structured disciplines of engineering, finance, and the sciences well. However, when applied to entrepreneurship education (EE), these same assumptions constrain innovation in program design and pedagogical practice. Despite notable progress since the 1970s, EE still faces persistent and unresolved questions: How can programs be structured to enhance both the quantity and quality of successful entrepreneurs? What balance between theory and practice most effectively fosters entrepreneurial capability? Can an iterative, opportunity-driven process be taught through a linear pedagogical model? How do instructors' beliefs and biases shape the entrepreneurial learning experience? Moreover, what are the broader consequences of applying traditional university pedagogy to a domain defined by uncertainty and emergence? The paper concludes by proposing that entrepreneurship education be designed not within the confines of the university's traditional instructional model but as part of an entrepreneurial biosphere—a living, adaptive learning system that mirrors the realities of entrepreneurial practice.

Keywords
Entrepreneurship Education, traditional education, non-traditional education, truisms, biosphere, ecosystem, higher education reform, experiential learning, capability development.

Cite this paper
Fregetto E, What is limiting entrepreneurship education? , SCIREA Journal of Education. Volume 10, Issue 6, December 2025 | PP. 299-343. 10.54647/education880635

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