Rice retains its rank among the top 20 nationally

Rice retains its rank among the top 20 nationally

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News staff

Rice University ranks among the top 20 best national universities on U.S. News & World Report’s list for 2009, and it made the top 10 on the magazine’s “Great Schools, Great Prices” list.

Rice is 17th among 262 schools classified as “national universities” — institutions that offer a
full range of undergraduate majors, master’s and doctoral degrees and are committed to producing groundbreaking research. Last year Rice tied for 17th with Emory University, which dropped to a three-way tie for 18th on the new list.

The U.S. News rankings, which will be published in the Sept. 1 issue, are based on seven measurements of academic quality: assessment by administrators at peer institutions, graduation and freshman-retention rates, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, alumni giving and graduation rate performance — the difference between the proportion of students expected to graduate and the proportion who actually do.

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Learn why Rice is considered one of the premier institutions of higher education in the nation Rice is 10th on the magazine’s list of best values among national universities. The magazine correlated the schools’ academic quality in the 2009 ranking with the 2007-2008 academic year net cost of attendance for a student who received the average level of need-based financial aid. In essence, the higher the quality of the program and the lower the cost, the better the deal.

Rice shows up on several other lists in the magazine. Based on the Class of 2007, Rice is seventh on the list of national universities whose graduates have the least amount of debt. The average amount of debt among the 57 percent of Rice students who graduate with debt is $12,249. Only three schools on the list have average debt under $11,000.

On the list of national universities with economic diversity, Rice is in a six-way tie for 15th place, along with Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, Northwestern University, University of Pennsylvania and Yale University. This ranking is based on the percentage of undergraduates receiving Federal Pell Grants for low-income students.

On the list of best undergraduate programs at engineering schools whose highest degree is a doctorate, Rice is in a four-way tie for 17th place, along with Pennsylvania State University-University Park, Texas A&M University-College Station and University of California-San Diego.

Two specialties at Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering are highlighted among undergraduate engineering specialties. Rice is ranked 10th in biomedical engineering and 15th in computer engineering.

For more on the rankings, visit www.usnews.com.