Survey finds entrepreneurship education gap for New Zealand students

Only one in six New Zealand university students surveyed has taken an entrepreneurship-related course, compared with more than two in five students internationally, according to new findings from the 2025 Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey.

The survey, known as GUESSS, is one of the world’s largest studies of student entrepreneurship. The 2025 global report includes 196,162 usable responses from 66 countries.

This year marks a significant expansion of the New Zealand dataset. The University of Waikato and Victoria University of Wellington participated for the first time, joining the University of Auckland, which has used GUESSS since 2018 to track student entrepreneurship.

New Zealand participation was coordinated and funded by the University of Auckland’s Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

The 2025 New Zealand national report is based on 4,154 usable responses from the three participating universities: 1,457 from Auckland, 577 from Waikato and 2,120 from Victoria. As with GUESSS country reports internationally, the report is based on participating institutions rather than a representative sample of all universities in the country.

The report found New Zealand students were less likely than students overseas to say they intended to start a business. Only 6.5 per cent of New Zealand respondents said they intended to become founders immediately after completing their studies, compared with 15.6 per cent in the rest of the world.

Five years after graduation, intention to become a founder rose to 20.7 per cent in New Zealand, but remained below the international benchmark of 28.5 per cent.

The global report found that student entrepreneurship has declined over time in countries that have consistently participated in GUESSS, reaching a historic low in the survey. However, it also noted a persistent “first employee, then entrepreneur” pattern, with many students seeing employment as a way to gain experience, networks and resources before considering venture creation.

Professor Rod McNaughton, Academic Director of the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, said the findings pointed to the importance of exposure, encouragement and practice in making entrepreneurship feel achievable for students.

“Many New Zealand students can imagine entrepreneurship in the future, but may not yet have had enough contact with entrepreneurs, or enough opportunities to practise the skills involved, to see it as something they can begin now,” he said.

“Entrepreneurial intention is shaped by experience. Without opportunities to meet entrepreneurs, test ideas and build entrepreneurial skills, entrepreneurship can remain an abstract option for later rather than a realistic pathway students can explore while studying.”

The activity figures show a similar pattern. In New Zealand, 11.7 per cent of respondents were nascent entrepreneurs, meaning they were trying to start a business that had not yet generated regular sales. The comparable international figure was 16.6 per cent.

Active entrepreneurship was also lower in New Zealand, at 3.8 per cent compared with 6.5 per cent internationally. Active entrepreneurs are students who already own and manage a business that has generated regular sales.

Darsel Keane, Director of the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, said the results highlighted the value of practical learning pathways.

“Students often arrive with curiosity, values and ideas, but encouragement alone is not enough,” she said.

“Often the first step is small: a customer interview, a prototype, a mentor conversation, a competition, or finding a team around a problem. Confidence comes from doing.”

The participation of three universities for the first time gives a broader view of student entrepreneurship in New Zealand than earlier Auckland-only reports.

The institutions showed somewhat different profiles in this sample. Auckland was stronger on course exposure and entrepreneurial climate, while Waikato showed higher founder intention and venture activity. Victoria also made a strong contribution, with the highest response rate and more than one in five respondents reporting participation in university innovation or entrepreneurship activities.

For Auckland, the 2025 data provides both continuity and a challenge. Immediate founder intention has remained relatively stable across recent surveys, as has its five-year founder intention. However, Auckland’s nascent and active entrepreneurship rates both declined between 2023 and 2025, echoing concerns in the global report about declining student entrepreneurship.

Professor McNaughton said the decline in nascent and active entrepreneurship mattered beyond the university sector.

“At a time when young people are facing a more uncertain labour market, fewer students experimenting with entrepreneurship is a concern,” he said.

“Start-ups are not an easy substitute for employment, but entrepreneurial capability matters when standard career pathways become less predictable. Young people need the confidence and experience to create opportunities, not only apply for them.”

The report also suggests entrepreneurship is not only a business school issue. In New Zealand, five-year founder intention was strongest in business and management, but was also prominent in creative arts and engineering.

Planned student ventures were concentrated in creative fields such as arts, music, fashion and design, and digital fields such as IT, AI and digitalisation.

The findings suggest entrepreneurial interest exists across disciplines, but does not consistently translate into practical activity.

Darsel Keane said the next step was to make entrepreneurship easier for students to encounter and practise before they graduate.

“Not every student needs to become a founder, but every student should have the chance to learn how entrepreneurial action works: how to spot a problem, test an idea, work with others and build confidence by doing,” she said.

“Those capabilities matter whether students start a business, join a growing venture, return to entrepreneurship later, or use entrepreneurial skills inside an existing organisation.”