You do not need to leave campus to start. Illinois Tech runs an innovation institute, a makerspace, a student accelerator course and an annual pitch competition with more than $50,000 in prizes. Use these before you apply anywhere else — an outside application is far stronger when you already have a prototype and a team.

Chicago has one of the deepest startup ecosystems in the country, and Illinois Tech works with much of it. Several of these organisations run free public events, student memberships and open workshops. mHUB is the natural fit for engineering and physical-product founders; MATTER for anything clinical or biotech.

Most student founders assume venture capital is the only option and then discover they are years away from qualifying for it. Chicago has an unusually good middle layer: pre-seed funds that write first checks, community lenders that will lend to a business with six months of history, and state grant programs that take no equity at all. Illinois Tech does not give investment or financial advice — treat everything here as a starting point for your own research.

Neighbouring universities run some of the best-funded startup programs in the Midwest, and a surprising number of their events, competitions and coworking spaces are open beyond their own enrollment. Read the eligibility line before assuming you are excluded.

These are the programs that consistently produce funded companies. Most are open only to their own students and alumni, but every one of them publishes its curriculum, its application questions and its demo days — which makes them the best free template available for how to build and pitch a company.

If you are an international student, or you plan to build somewhere other than the United States, these are the programs that matter. Several run English-language accelerators open to applicants from outside their own universities.

A startup studio — also called a venture studio or company builder — does something different from an incubator or an accelerator. Instead of waiting for founders to apply, the studio generates the idea itself, then hires a team to build it, funds the first stage, and spins the company out. For a student that matters for one practical reason: studios hire. An entry-level role, internship or founding-engineer seat at a studio is one of the fastest ways to see a company built from zero, and you keep your salary while you learn it. The directories below are how you find them.

These are the studios you can physically visit, intern at, or meet at a Chicago event. The Midwest has fewer studios than the coasts, which cuts both ways — less competition for a seat, and a smaller number of doors to knock on. Start with the two in Chicago.

These are the US studios that show up repeatedly in the directories, grouped by region so you can target the ones where you would actually be willing to live. Several — Atomic, AlleyCorp, Flagship — hire recent graduates directly into founding roles, and most post those jobs on their own sites rather than on job boards.

If you are an international student planning to build in your home country, or you want to work at a studio somewhere with a friendlier visa route, start here. Europe in particular has a dense studio scene, and several of these studios operate in English and recruit internationally.

University programs are the easiest door to walk through while you are enrolled. These are the doors that stay open after you graduate. Several — Antler and Entrepreneur First in particular — will fund you before you have a company or even a co-founder, which makes them unusually good fits for a new graduate with a strong technical skill and no business yet.

Grant funding is the most under-used money in student entrepreneurship, because it is non-dilutive — you keep the whole company. These programs also force you to articulate the problem before you build, which is the step most student ventures skip.

Every program on this page is competitive, and the applications ask the same handful of questions. These resources are free, self-paced, and written by the people who read those applications.