In my role as Entrepreneur in Residence at MIT and Program Director for MIT’s Global Founders’ Skill Accelerator (GFSA), I’ve been researching accelerator programs worldwide, and I thought I’d share some of that research in a series of blog posts. This is the third post in the series; read the other posts starting here.

 The accelerator community in the U.S. can be broadly divided into two segments: The accelerators owned by university campuses and the independent accelerator programs. Educational accelerators, driven by universities, bring unique capabilities and access to talent.

In my work with MIT, I’ve observed a very ambitious group that was also very aligned with the MIT community culture, which supports the teams through its educational process and ecosystem.

Naturally, I’ll start with MIT, but also highlight other excellent accelerator programs.

The Martin Trust Center at MIT has played a pivotal role in fostering a spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship among the student community. According to reported estimates at the end of 2014, 30,200 active companies were founded by living MIT alumni—employing 4.6 million people and generating annual world revenues of nearly $2 trillion. These MIT alumni startups collectively represent the 10th largest economy in the world (you can get even more stats here).

The Martin Trust Center offers a series of entrepreneurship courses for undergraduates and graduate students, hardware infrastructure, collaborative workspace, meeting rooms, videoconference system, and even coffee and snacks to inspire young innovators. The advisory panel boasting the brightest minds in the industry is available to provide guidance; while the MIT Global Founders’ Skills Accelerator (MIT GFSA) and events like Speaker Series’, Roundtable sessions, or MIT $100K competition are additional facilities to boost entrepreneurship around the campus.

The Harvard Rock Accelerator Program serves both student entrepreneurs and student investors who work together to grow and sustain a startup operation. This one-year long program offers 10-20 founding teams with each funding $8,000 in seed capital, excellent mentors, and peer exchange sessions till completion.

Stanford’s StartX Accelerator Program helps Stanford’s top entrepreneurs through a combination of empirical studies and collaborative expertise. This unique accelerator program does not charge any fee and takes zero equity from student companies. This program has managed to attract funds from leading investors like Greylock Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, boasts over 200 mentors who are field experts—including individuals from Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, and other luminaries in Silicon Valley, delivers custom education, and offers the latest technological resources.

The Babson College Butler Venture Accelerator Program has packed in seed-funding, advising, workspace, mentoring, and even self-assessments and peer support in a highly focused program. Additionally, this program includes the Glavin Office of Multicultural & International Education, where immigration attorneys offer work authorization guidelines to international students with restrictive visas.

In 6 college startup programs beyond Harvard and MIT, Beta Boston provides a roundup of some serious accelerator-program owners beyond the likes of MIT and Harvard, who offer strong accelerator programs in Massachusetts.

Does your college or university offer an accelerator program? How do you think it stacks up? Let me know below under “Leave a Reply.”

If you want to read my next post in this series check back here on my blog or follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter.