The rich get richer?

[jimbogumbo]

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2021/03/30/rice-will-grow-undergrad-student-body-20-2025

[mythbuster]

Interesting. Back in the 1990's Rice pushed their reputation of being elite at a lower cost of tuition. It was significant enough that I flew out with my Mom one year over HS spring break to take the tour. Mom's assessment was "do not feel obligated to apply here."

A quick search shows their tuition is now $49 K per year. Plenty high in my opinion, although not as high as some.  I wonder if they are giving up on the low cost model?

[TreadingLife]

Quick Googling found this:

The Rice University endowment value was $6.2 billion for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2020. The endowment plays a vital role, as distributions provide approximately 40% of the University's operating revenues, which make it the single largest revenue source to the operating budget.

Seems like even the rich are worrying about their net tuition revenue if they want to grow 20%.

Rice and elite don't go in the same sentence for me, but hey, aren't we all elite in our own minds.

[mythbuster]

The admission rate at Rice is currently 8%. In my book that certainly makes them "elite".

[Aster]

Rice is running off an unusually good PR high lately. I'm not sure how long it will last for them. I'd be wary of making long term growth predictions for them.

[hazelshade]

A quick search shows their tuition is now $49 K per year. Plenty high in my opinion, although not as high as some.  I wonder if they are giving up on the low cost model?

Rice is one of a relatively small group of schools (the 568 Group) that admit students without regard to financial need and meet students' full demonstrated need.

Side note: I'm interested in the shifts in 568 Group membership over the past couple of years. Wikipedia captured the members as of ~2015; since then, Brown, Holy Cross, Hamilton, Haverford, St. John's, Penn, and Vandy have left the group, and Caltech, Rice, and Yale have joined.

[Hibush]

A quick search shows their tuition is now $49 K per year. Plenty high in my opinion, although not as high as some.  I wonder if they are giving up on the low cost model?

Rice is one of a relatively small group of schools (the 568 Group) that admit students without regard to financial need and meet students' full demonstrated need.

Side note: I'm interested in the shifts in 568 Group membership over the past couple of years. Wikipedia captured the members as of ~2015; since then, Brown, Holy Cross, Hamilton, Haverford, St. John's, Penn, and Vandy have left the group, and Caltech, Rice, and Yale have joined.

With 21 members, that is a rather elite group. While they are all relatively rich, as they would have to be, it is not just the very richest.

How aware are potential students and their parents of this policy? The schools have to be super selective, but if you get in the financial aid offer will probably be the most attractive by quite a bit.

[polly_mer]

How aware are potential students and their parents of this policy? The schools have to be super selective, but if you get in the financial aid offer will probably be the most attractive by quite a bit.

The education outlets I follow indicate a lot of effort for years going into ensuring that high school guidance counselors know that expensive, elite places often have the best financial aid.

The advice I've seen for smart, poor kids on various how-to-do-college sites is to specifically check for these types of programs.

Whether that information gets to the people who need it, I don't know, but I certainly see efforts to get that information out.

Of course, one must already have the academic and other record that gets one into a highly selective institution.  The term "privileged poor" from other threads comes to mind.  I guarantee you that the scholarship kids at the fancy elite HS know about these programs.

[jimbogumbo]

The release also caught my eye as for the first time after years of interacting with really good dual credit calculus students one from a very small and isolated rural school has received a full ride at Rice.

[Hibush]

"The university will open a 12th residential college and expand the number of students living on campus by about one-third, to 3,525."

This is a big investment by Rice, on top of expanding the teaching staff and facilities.
Rice's website indicates that they are not doing this on the cheap. A just finished project added just 90 beds.
"New Sid Richardson College will be approximately 148,000 square feet, increasing capacity from 229 in the existing college to 312 beds. Construction began in August 2019, and building occupancy is scheduled for January 2021."