“The need for entrepreneurship education in public universities: insights from student perspectives”

This work seeks to evaluate the need for entrepreneurship and the influence of entrepreneurship on the entrepreneurial intentions of undergraduate and graduate students at a large Mexican public university, the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN). It aims to analyse key student and institutional predictor variables of entrepreneurial intent. A cross-sectional, population-based survey was performed among 812 high school, undergraduate, and postgraduate students at IPN. The data were analyzed using ordinal logistic regression to examine the association between entrepreneur intention (dependent variable) and, among others, interest in entrepreneurship education, gender, business type, and knowledge level about institutional support as independent variables. The findings indicate a positive and statistically significant correlation between entrepreneurial intentions and students’ interest in entrepreneurship education. It was also the fact that their business type (tech and services versus, say, straight commerce) was revealed.” However, gender, study status, and awareness of the institutional support systems did not significantly moderate propensity toward entrepreneurship. The findings indicate that students’ enthusiasm for entrepreneurship is overshadowed by their frustrations, primarily attributed to resource constraints and lack of support in the public university setting. The results suggest that further efforts to boost entrepreneurial ecosystems in capacity-constrained settings are required and provide valuable implications for policymakers and educators seeking to design more effective, demand-led entrepreneurship initiatives.