In recent years there has been a real trend in the number of startup founders either not going to college or dropping out of their university classes and then going on to grow huge businesses.

However, while there has been a lot of press about these types of entrepreneurs, and while it’s certainly possible to build a big venture without having a qualification, there are still many reasons to stay at school.

University degrees not only teach you valuable knowledge but also help you hone necessary business skills, enable you to network and build relationships with key people, get access to handy resources and much more.

If you’re interested in becoming an entrepreneur at some point, or even if you’re already running your own small business, it pays to enroll in a program (either online or on campus) that will stand you in good stead for business success.

Read on for some helpful degrees to should consider to help get you prepared sooner rather than later.

Business Degree

Obviously one of the most popular degrees people enroll in to help get them ready to be self-employed is a business degree.

During this kind of course you will take in information about all sorts of topics that will help you to run an organization, such as leadership, human resources, technology, finance, accounting, marketing, administration, sales, international markets and so on.

While studying business, you will also get the chance to hone skills in areas such as communication, time management, negotiation, organization and much more as you complete assignments solo and in groups. You’ll need to handle presentations well, deal with strong personalities in group work and listen to the opinions and ideas of people who likely hail from all over the globe.

Plus, another reason to complete a business degree is that during your course you will likely need to do one or more internships. These work placements can be helpful when it comes to picking up tips from other entrepreneurs about how they lead and run their ventures.

Analytics Degree

These days, a degree that is becoming increasingly popular, with both business-minded and computer-focused people, is analytics. With big data playing such a huge part in how organizations, large and small, operate and grow, completing an undergraduate or master’s degree in data analytics is worth it.

The time and energy you outlay on this kind of course will enable you to become particularly knowledgeable about how to best collate, track, read and analyze data and use the information it gives you to make strategic decisions for your firm.

Not only is analytics vital in tech businesses, but it is also used by all sorts of companies for tasks such as increasing productivity, cutting costs, streamlining processes, learning about and catering to customers, improving conversion rates, providing effective customer service, evaluating potential products or services and the like.

Economics Degree

The cashflow side of business being such an important part of running a venture, yet troubles in this arena are the cause of many venture closures. Thus, another helpful degree for entrepreneurs is economics.

In this kind of program you will get educated on finance and accounting, international markets, how micro and macro changes can affect businesses, currencies, banking and so forth.

This will all put you in good stead to not only run a profitable organization at some poin, but to also know how to wisely invest cash made from the business and grow it over the years.

Psychology Degree

If you want to get ahead as an entrepreneur, you will need to have a decent understanding of human nature and how the brain works.

This might seem strange, but in business you regularly have to be clear about what motivates and inspires people (e.g. your customers, employees, investors, suppliers and other internal and external stakeholders), and how to get the most from yourself and your team.

A psychology degree can definitely help you with this. Through your studies you will learn about different drivers and personality types plus body language, negotiation, conflict resolution and a whole lot more.

This will in turn assist you to hire and train employees, keep your own emotions in check when times are tough, know which products or services will be of most interest to customers, come up with effective sales and marketing ideas, deliver customer service that gets results and handle many other necessary functions.