Ranking It
A costly plummet? Rice drops out of Princeton Review's prestigious Top 10, UH stands strong
Houston's version of an Ivy League school — Rice University — established itself as a regular in the Top 10 of the prestigious Princeton Review's 150 "Best Value Colleges," reaching as high as the No. 1 spot three times in the last 12 years. This year, however, Rice has dropped from the Top 10 entirely.
The Review said that through grants, work-study, merit aid and institutional funds, Rice's financial aid program reached 100 percent of student need. In spite of dropping off the list this year, the school's yearly tuition (both in-state and out-of-state) remained the same at $36,610, as did room and board costs of $12,600. According to the list, nearly 65 percent of undergraduates received need-based aid, with the average aid package coming to $33,004.
Other schools apparently have passed Rice in affordability, though.
University of Houston students graduate with an average of $16,582 in debt.
The University of Houston was also named as one of the nation's 150 "Best Value Colleges" for the fourth time with its average yearly in-state tuition at $9,318 and out-of-state at $19,848. The Review says that 80 percent of UH freshman receive financial aid with an average aid package of $9,724. Yearly room and board at the university is $8,753. The rankings note that University of Houston students graduate with an average of $16,582 in debt.
Three other Texas universities made the new list — The University of Texas, The University of Texas at Dallas and Texas A&M University.
To create the 2014 rankings, the Princeton Review compiled institutional data and surveys from 2,000 undergraduate colleges and universities.