Best Buy Founder Dick Schulze Didn't Attend College But He Thinks You Should The Minnesotan business legend talks about his namesake entrepreneurial school and decades of sustained success.

Dick Schulze's college prospects were diverted long ago by a stint in the Air National Guard, but that doesn't mean he thinks emerging entrepreneurs and innovators shouldn't pursue higher education. It's why the 80-year-old Best Buy founder and Chairman Emeritus founded the University of St. Thomas' Schulze School of Entrepreneurship in 2005. And it's the reason he remains a trustee emeritus at the St. Paul, Minnesota-based institution (Schulze is a St. Paul native) and is deeply invested — financially and otherwise — in the on-campus leadership incubator that bears his name.

It seems to be paying off, both for Schulze's legacy and the fortunes of alumni. UST's School of Entrepreneurship landed at no. 23 on this year's Princeton Review/Entrepreneur ranking of the country's top 50 undergrad programs for aspiring business leaders. Not only that, but Best Buy has defied odds and remained profitable and investor-friendly amid the pandemic and larger sea changes in consumer shopping.

Schulze, who also endows an eponymous charitable foundation and even serves as active president of a charter-aircraft company, connected by phone with us recently from his home in Minnesota and offered the following keys to decades of business growth and constant learning.