My recommendation would be to join an accelerators or incubator program. That gives you the mentors/teachers necessary to satisfy the "learning" requirements of the university. Alternatively, try to find experienced partners for your stand-alone venture (sort of arranging your own private accelerator program).
As a last resort, maybe you can get a traditonal internship in an established start-up that relates to your space. You could then pitch your project within that start-up. Who knows, they might pick up on it.
I like your advice on going with an incubator or accelerator program to get started. Another option is if the OP is dead set on doing his/her own startup as part of the program, would be to go into the administration with a predefined list of objectives/goals to accomplish within the time period that are directly related to the degree path. For example, if it is a business degree, make the goals business oriented, such as incorporation, accounting structure, etc... If the degree path is programming related, make the goals such as having an MVP developed or building out the landing page for the site, etc...
Even interning at an established startup can get turned down if the administration does not feel the experience is valuable. So the whole point of the effort would be to prove to them that you will learn/gain more by doing your own startup.