Rice tuition to remain lower than peer institutions

Rice tuition to remain lower than peer institutions’

Rice University has announced its tuition rates for the 2006-07 academic year.

To assist in the planning of already enrolled students and their families, the tuition increases will be smaller for returning students than for new students. The average increase will be $993 (4.6 percent) for students who matriculated between fall 2002 and spring 2006.

By class, student tuition and fees will be:

• Fifth-year students — $20,474

• Seniors — $21,474

• Juniors — $23,504

• Sophomores — $25,074

• Entering students — $26,974

Tuition for most new graduate students will be $26,100; for architecture, music and professional masters students, $23,400; and for continuing graduate students, $23,950. At Rice’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management, tuition will be $32,150 for full-time MBA students. Entering students in the new MBA for Professionals program will pay $37,000 per year for each of their two years; entering executive MBA students will pay $40,725 per year for each of their two years.

Across the board, Rice’s tuition remains significantly lower than tuition at all of its private peer institutions, which in announcements so far have set undergraduate tuition more than 25 percent, or about $7,000, higher than Rice’s tuition.

“We set our tuition and financial aid for next fall with several things in mind,” said Rice President David Leebron. “Central among these is maintaining affordability, while improving quality and meeting rising expenses, which this year include an expected increase in energy costs in the range of 40 percent.”

Maintaining an affordable education is among Rice’s highest priorities. Rice has long been among the few dozen colleges and universities to practice need-blind admissions — that is, students are admitted without regard to their ability to pay and then a financial-aid package is put together to meet 100 percent of demonstrated need.

The university’s strong financial-aid policies bring down the price most students pay to a fraction of the stated tuition and other charges. Among currently enrolled undergraduates, 78.4 percent receive aid packages that — including grants from all sources, work-study and loans — average $17,600 each.

A recently announced campaign to raise $100 million in additional undergraduate scholarships will increase that financial aid. Also, beginning with those entering last fall, Rice eliminated loan requirements for students from families with incomes under $30,000 and greatly limited loan requirements for students from middle-income families. 

“Our generous financial-aid policy is the most important element in making sure that every student we admit, regardless of the financial situation of their families, is able to attend Rice,” Leebron said. “We shall continue the process of adjusting that policy and increasing the amount of aid to assure we are achieving that goal.”

http://www.students.rice.edu/students/Tuition_2006-2007.asp