Detroit entrepreneur incubator Bizdom U makes the pages of USA Today

"We love Ph.D.s, but a specific kind of Ph.D. — poor, hungry and driven," says Gilbert, a graduate of Michigan State University and Wayne State University Law School.

More than 1,000 people have applied in Bizdom's first two years — though only a fraction make the cut after a laborious battery of background checks and interviews.

Students also are recruited from colleges, high schools, local business-plan competitions and entrepreneurship training fairs.

Those who are admitted attend class three days a week, from 9-to-5, in space leased from Wayne State University. There, they are lectured, tested and given practical business tasks to perform.

Gilbert is considering expanding the program to other cities, starting with Cleveland.

"Knowing Bizdom was created by Dan Gilbert gives us confidence that a model like this could accelerate urban entrepreneurship elsewhere," says Bo Fishback, vice president of entrepreneurship at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the world's largest foundation devoted to entrepreneurship. "There is no other program like this in the country. It is difficult to replicate its powerful mix of classroom learning and hands-on practical experience at a university."