Rice No. 17

Coogs Rule: University of Houston makes prestigious Best Colleges list for firsttime ever

The University of Houston landed a spot on the U.S. News & World Report's 2013Best Colleges Ranking.
UH became a Tier One school in January 2011.

The University of Houston is becoming an important player in higher education, as evidenced by its first ever spot on the U.S. News & World Report's 2013 Best Colleges Rankings. And the school's ready to celebrate.

On Wednesday morning, UH president Renu Khator tweeted,

UH moves from unranked to being ranked in US News & World Report for first time . . . reward for our focus on student success!

— Renu Khator (@UHpres) September 12, 2012

It's nowhere near the stature of Harvard or Princeton, which tied for No. 1 among the Best National Universities, a ranking based on individual missions and 16 indicators of academic excellence, such as student body, faculty, financial resources and outcome measures.

UH isn't in the same rarified air as Houston's smaller, more exclusive Rice University, which shares the title of No. 17 in the nation with University of Notre Dame and Vanderbilt University. Rice is a regular fixture in these rankings.

But the University of Houston does now rank No. 184th in the nation, thanks low tuition and fees ($9,211 for in-state students), an undergraduate enrollment of 31,764 and a 63.6 percent acceptance rate. The magazine only ranks 199 colleges with the rest declared unranked.

UH's number seems destined to rise even further in the future, with recent Tier One affirmation and much more in store.

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Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

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Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”