Hometown Glory

Rice ranks behind only Princeton, Yale & Caltech in best education value

Rice University, No. 4 on the list of best private university values.
Princeton ranked first in the country.
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The only other Texas school on the list, Trinity University in San Antonio atNo. 26

With the cost of higher education in an ever-increasing spiral, it's nice to know there are some good values left, even if college bargains are thin on the ground.

Kiplinger's crunched the numbers for 600 private universities and liberal arts colleges and Houston's Rice University was among the very top.

Rice is ranked fourth on the list of best values in private universities. With a total annual cost of $46,321, Rice has the lowest pricetag of all of Kiplinger's top 25 universities.

Though affordability factors played a large role, Kiplinger first looks at the quality of the institutions it ranks.

"Ever met parents who dream of sending their child to a mediocre college just because it’s cheap? Neither have we," intone the editors.

So they start with factors like the student-to-faculty ratio, rankings and test scores of incoming students and how many students return after freshman year and eventually graduate. Then they look at affordability and financial aid.

With these criteria in place, Rice followed only Princeton, Yale and Caltech in the private university list. Among liberal arts colleges, which were ranked separately, Swarthmore took the top spot, followed by Pomona and Williams College.

Singled out with a feature in the December issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance, Rice is described as being a small school with big ambitions.

This small, top-flight institution goes head-to-head with MIT for its science and engineering programs and with Juilliard for music. It boasts a student-faculty ratio of five to one, second only to Caltech. Rice draws — and keeps — outstanding students: 72% of this year’s freshmen ranked in the top 5% of their high school class, and 93% of students stick around to graduate. Have we mentioned the price? Tuition-free until 1965, Rice remains a relative bargain. Its total annual cost -- $46,321 -- runs $6,000 to $7,000 less than that of many of its counterparts, including Duke, Stanford and Vanderbilt. Rice knocks off more than half that amount, on average, for students who qualify for need-based aid. “We have a special, historic commitment to be an affordable university,” says [Rice president David] Leebron.

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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.”