Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg, all of them are college dropouts. They believed that working on their ideas full-time was the best way forward to accomplish their plans. It is quite obvious that pursuing your entrepreneurial venture while working on the academic requirements of your university is a cumbersome task. But, what if you don’t really have to “quit” university but just take a “short leave” to build on your startup?

These Indian institutions allow their students to take a semester, a year, or even more off to pursue their business ideas and build their startups while not losing out on anything. 

1. BITS Pilani

Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, recently announced that it will allow students to take up to a year off to work on their ideas and build their own ventures. BITS Pilani graduates have founded more than 900 startups, with 13 of them making it into the Indian unicorns list. 

This move from BITS comes in the spirit of competing with the entrepreneurial culture in IITs. According to reports, over 73 of nearly 100 unicorns in India are founded by IIT graduates.

2. IIT Madras

IIT-M has been promoting entrepreneurship in their students and are pushing them to work on their business ideas. According to their policy, students can consult with the faculty guides about their ideas and thereafter take a semester off to focus solely on their development.

Dr Ashwin Mahalingam, faculty advisor of C-TIDES at IIT-M, said, “Entrepreneurship functions well when it’s full time.” The course has also been tweaked by the university to allow students to come back if needed, and comfortably so.

3. IIT Hyderabad

Apart from ‘leave of absence’ for up to one year, B.tech students of IIT-H can also use the university’s resources on campus to build their business idea. 

Professor BS Murty, Director, said, “The leave will be granted to those students who come up with startup ideas that demand their undivided attention. Small or big, successful or not, we want students to try their best to come up with innovations.”

4. DIT University

Dehradun Institute of Technology allows their staff and students to take a semester off, or a year, or even more time depending on the decision made by the review committee of the university. The leave can be unpaid or paid depending on the committee’s call. 

The university also allows the usage of its resources for building the business, such as labs, senior faculty and more.

5. IIT Kharagpur 

In 2016, IIT Kharagpur introduced their “temporary withdrawal programme” that allows students to take a break from their academic studies and pursue their entrepreneurial calling. 

Students can come back and attend the classes if the startups fail and can also appear for placements. PP Das, Professor at IIT Kharagpur, said that though students can withdraw for more than a year, the mentoring professors must properly verify before admitting them again. 

6. IIT Bombay

In 2014, IIT Bombay allowed students to omit themselves from classes and campus placements if they are working on their own ventures. In case the startup does not workout, they can appear in the placements after two years. 

At the current stage, the college allows students to take a semester or more off during their 4-year course duration, to work on their startups.

7. Gujarat Technological University (GTU)

One of the first universities to allow students to leave the college academics for two years and complete their degree in six years, GTU’s start-up policy allows students to work on their startups for two years on leave and get a grace up attendance of 10%. 

The policy also includes graduates of the course who can continue to work on their businesses for three years after graduation and seek help from faculty, using resources of the university.

8. IIT Indore

IIT Indore allows its research scholars and students to take a formal leave for a semester or more if they are building a startup or working full-time. After the duration of the leave, the student is supposed to return and complete his academic work in the specified time.

The committee at the Center of Innovation, Incubation, Entrepreneurship and Industry Relations of the university decides the validity of the startups on various parameters, ranging from the size of the team to the value.

9. IIT Kanpur

In 2021, IIT Kanpur introduced the concept of  “Innovation and Entrepreneurship Credit” to enable students in their third year of undergraduate studies to pursue entrepreneurial activities after completion of minimum course work. 

The policy allows students to take a semester’s leave to work either inside or outside the campus and also gives them credit for working in a business environment while allowing them to appear for placements later, if needed. 

10. Kerala Technology University (KTU)

KTU, under the Kerala Student Startup Mission, is enabling an ecosystem for students to work on their business and entrepreneurship skills. Along with establishing ten technology businesses accelerators, the policy also allows students to take an official leave of maximum one year to build their idea during the course of study. 

Aside from this, students working on the startups since their first year can also present their startups as their final project for degree completion.