CHART COURTESY OF EDUCATION SECTOR
	In a new study by Education Sector, Rice is among the five private research universities with the lowest ratio of student debt to degrees awarded.

Rice is No. 5 among top private research universities
New study uses borrowing-to-credential ratio to measure colleges’ value

A new study by the think tank Education Sector ranks Rice University No. 5 among top private research universities with the lowest ratio of student debt to degrees awarded.

”Students choosing colleges and policymakers governing higher education need an overall measure of value, one that combines debt and graduation,” the study authors wrote.

To determine a school’s value, the researchers divided the amount of money undergraduates and their families borrowed in federal student-loan programs by the number of degrees awarded by the school for each of three academic years: 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09. This borrowing-to-credential ratio takes into account debt loans and dropout rates to arrive at the amount of debt incurred for each degree awarded.

The researchers found that among the 33 private institutions classified as top research universities by the Carnegie Foundation, the ratio ranged from $2,385 (Princeton) to $25,886 (New York University). They attributed the wide variance to differences in the size of the schools’ endowment, no-loan financial-aid policies and students’ economic status.

Princeton was followed by followed by Caltech, Harvard, MIT and Rice on the lower end of the ratio scale. All had a debt-to-degree ratio under $7,500.

The average ratio at private nonprofit colleges and universities was $21,827. The average ratio at public four-year universities was $16,247.

A summary of the report, ”Debt to Degree: A New Way of Measuring College Success,” can be downloaded at http://www.educationsector.org/publications/debt-degree-new-way-measuring-college-success.