More college students get start-up schooling

As colleges expand entrepreneurship education, more are giving hands-on schooling in the rarefied world of start-up finance.

The University of Maryland’s $25 million New Markets Growth Fund, a venture-capital fund managed partly by graduate students, recently approved two start-up investments. That brings to six the number of firms getting its money.

At the University of Michigan, the $3.5 million Wolverine Venture Fund, is educating students, and profiting. Its investment in medical device maker IntraLase earned it $750,000 when IntraLase went public last fall.

And the University of Utah, with a big assist from prominent Silicon Valley financier Tim Draper, in January launched a $5 million venture-capital fund advised by students. Its first investment: $100,000 in a Valley medical device start-up, BaroSense. Draper, whose Draper Fisher Jurvetson’s investments include Hotmail, pumped $1 million into the Utah fund.

By Jim Hopkins, USA TODAY

Full Story: http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/2005-03-14-young-vcs-usat_x.htm