Undergraduate Entrepreneurship as a Driver of Lifelong Learning: Evidence from Obafemi Awolowo University

Abstract

Despite the growing recognition of entrepreneurship as a response to graduate unemployment in Nigeria, undergraduate student entrepreneurs continue to face significant financial, academic, and institutional barriers that remain underexplored within the lifelong learning discourse at Obafemi Awolowo University. Grounded in Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory, the study examined the entrepreneurial barriers experienced by students, how personal characteristics shape their interpretation of these barriers, the coping and adaptive strategies employed in response, and the institutional support systems and strategies that facilitate entrepreneurial engagement.

A descriptive case study design was adopted to provide an in-depth understanding of the lived entrepreneurial experiences of undergraduate students within a bounded university context. Using purposive sampling, 15 undergraduate student entrepreneurs were selected, and data were generated through in-depth semi-structured interviews. The data were analysed using thematic analysis within an interpretive qualitative content analysis framework.

The findings reveal that student entrepreneurship functions as a dynamic experiential learning process in which barriers such as financial limitations, academic workload pressures, networking challenges, and institutional restrictions become concrete learning experiences. Students interpreted these experiences through personal traits such as resilience, adaptability, and self-regulation, while employing coping strategies including time management, outsourcing, digital networking, and peer collaboration.

The study further found that family support, peer networks, mentorship, and proposed institutional strategies such as funding opportunities, alumni engagement, and supportive campus policies significantly strengthen entrepreneurial learning pathways. The study concludes that undergraduate entrepreneurship extends beyond economic activity to constitute a socially embedded form of lifelong experiential learning. It advances knowledge by extending Kolb’s framework beyond individual cognition to include the wider social and institutional ecosystem through which entrepreneurial learning is sustained in higher education contexts.