The most prestigious higher education institution in Houston has done it again: Rice University has topped WalletHub's 2025 list of the best colleges and universities in Texas for 2025.
The just-released list analyzed more than 800 colleges and universities in the United States using 30 metrics to determine their rankings.
Rice claimed the No. 1 spot in Texas and in WalletHub's regional category of best universities in the South. The school also ranked as the No. 6 best college nationwide.
Rice earned first place in the category for the "best" (or lowest) on-campus crime rates, and ranked 13th for its gender and racial diversity. The school ranked No. 24 in the category for net cost. According to U.S. News and World Report, tuition and fees at Rice cost $60,709 per year. Rice also has an acceptance rate of eight percent, earning the university No. 27 in the category for admission rates.
Here's how WalletHub broke down the rest of Rice's ranking, where No. 1 is the best and No. 49 is the worst:
- No. 26 – Student-faculty ratio
- No. 43 – Graduation rate
- No. 47 – Post-attendance median salary
Rice's recent accolades add to an ongoing winning streak of high rankings. In September, the private university ranked as the No. 1 best Texas college for 2025 by
U.S. News, and ranked No. 18 nationally. Education information and review platform
Niche also
recently ranked Rice the 15th best college in the country and the No. 1 best in Texas for 2025. And
Forbes named Rice No. 9 in its 2024-25 list of top U.S. colleges.
In the spring, Rice's Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business ranked No. 2 in the national publication's ranking of the
best graduate schools in Texas.
The only other Houston university to earn a spot in WalletHub's report was the University of Houston, earning No. 12 in Texas and No. 288 nationally.
The top five universities that outranked Rice in the national rankings were Princeton University (No. 1), Yale University (No. 2), Harvard University (No. 3), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (No. 4), and Dartmouth College (No. 5).
The top 10 colleges and universities in Texas are:
- No. 1 – Rice University
- No. 2 – The University of Texas at Austin
- No. 3 – Trinity University
- No. 4 – Texas A&M University-College Station
- No. 5 – Southwestern University
- No. 6 – Texas Christian University
- No. 7 – Austin College
- No. 8 – Texas A&M International University
- No. 9 – University of Dallas
- No. 10 – Southern Methodist University
