Northwestern University's student startup incubator The Garage earned the No. 1 university incubator spot and No. 5 overall ranking on TIME magazine's inaugural America's Best Incubators & Accelerators list, published Tuesday, Aug. 18.

The Evanston-based program, which launched in 2015, beat out incubators at universities nationwide while competing against corporate and independent accelerators for the overall ranking. Only four programs placed higher: Techstars, MassChallenge, Tampa Bay Wave and one other.

In 11 years, The Garage has incubated more than 1,500 startups that have collectively raised more than $1.6 billion and created more than 2,600 jobs.

Seventeen have been acquired.

"The TIME ranking tells the world our approach to student entrepreneurship is the gold standard," executive director Mike Raab said in Northwestern's Aug. 18 announcement of the honor.

The Garage's model differs from many incubators: it takes no equity or ownership stake in student ventures. Founders get workspace, mentorship and community while retaining full ownership of their companies. Programs are open to Northwestern students across all schools, majors and levels of study.

The program now engages more than 2,000 students each academic year and hosts roughly 40 residency teams per quarter. Its startup portfolio spans medicine, law, energy, media and technology.

TIME partnered with data company Statista on the ranking methodology, which combined alumni feedback, track-record analysis of each program's top-performing startups and expert recommendation scores from investors and experienced entrepreneurs. More than 2,000 alumni participated in the evaluation, and 80 programs made the final list.

Northwestern President Mung Chiang credited "the strategic and persistent hard work by our colleagues at The Garage" in the university's press release and called the ranking "another indicator of the promising years yet to come for all Northwestern entrepreneurs."

The Garage's top-five placement is notable in part because similar rankings have historically been dominated by Silicon Valley- and New York-based programs, according to Northwestern. A fiscal year 2024 university report noted The Garage had expanded to San Francisco to serve students and alumni in the Bay Area, with a Chicago space also in development at that time.

The Garage's next quarterly residency cycle begins with the fall academic term.