fly high

Rice University named top college in U.S. News' new rankings for 2025

The home of the Rice Owls is on top once again.

Rice University

Houston's own "Ivy League of the South" has come out on top as one of the best universities in the nation for 2025, according to U.S. News and World Report's just-released list of the Best Colleges for 2025.

Rice University claimed No. 1 in Texas, and ranked No. 18 nationally in a one-spot slip from last year's ranking. The private institution has a 98 percent first-year retention rate, and an "actual" graduation rate of 96 percent. Rice costs $60,709 in tuition and fees for students each year, and according to the school's profile, it has an acceptance rate of eight percent.

In April, Rice's Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business ranked No. 2 in U.S. News' ranking of the best graduate schools in Texas, with its entrepreneurship program tying for No. 8 nationally, and the part-time MBA program ranking No. 15 overall. Those rankings may change in the next few years once the school finishes its brand new facility for the business school.

Rice also fared similarly in Niche'slist of best colleges, in which it ranked No. 15 nationally. Forbes ranked the university No. 9 nationwide in its list of best colleges for the 2024-2025 school year, and Rice was bestowed an "Ivy League" status in Forbes' recent report on top public and private schools that churn out top graduates.

“We are delighted to see Rice University recognized as one of America’s producers of great talent. Rice has been a recruiting destination for employers for many years and that is because Rice students are adaptable, curious, bright, and are solution oriented,” Nicole Van Den Heuvel, executive director of the Center for Career Development, says in a news release from Rice.

In a glowing review of the university, one former business student said studying at Rice was a "transformative experience."

"Rice is the perfect blend of rigorous academics, strong athletics, and a nurturing and engaging social life," the reviewer wrote. "It's quite idyllic. Rice is known as a STEM school, but it has distinguished programs in humanities, social sciences, music and architecture too. Professors are top scholars in their fields and will know you by name. Students are well prepared academically, but are also collaborative and supportive."

Right behind Rice in the rankings is The University of Texas at Austin, which ranked No. 2 in Texas and No. 30 nationally. Just behind UT Austin is College Station's Texas A&M University, which placed No. 3 in the Texas rankings and No. 51 nationally.

The University of Houston maintained its No. 8 rank in the statewide comparison, but fell 11 spots down into No. 144 in the national rankings.

The University of St. Thomas ranked No. 9 in Texas, and moved up seven places to rank No. 209 in the U.S. for 2025.

U.S. News' top 10 best colleges in Texas in 2025 are:

No. 1 – Rice University, Houston
No. 2 – University of Texas at Austin
No. 3 – Texas A&M University, College Station
No. 4 – Baylor University, Waco
No. 5 – Southern Methodist University, Dallas
No. 6 – Texas Christian University, Fort Worth
No. 7 – The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson
No. 8 – University of Houston
No. 9 – University of St. Thomas, Houston
No. 10 – Texas Tech University, Lubbock

The full rankings can be found on usnews.com.

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safe suburbs

Houston neighbor shines on new 2025 list of safest American cities

Photo courtesy of Visit Pearland

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New Year's resolutions can come in many forms, and if relocating to a safe Houston-area suburb is high on the list for 2025, Pearland is the place to be.

Pearland was declared the No. 13 safest city in America for 2025 in a new study by personal finance advisors MoneyGeek. The website's experts examined the most recent FBI crime statistics (from 2023) to determine the cost of crime in 292 U.S. cities with populations over 100,000 residents.

The estimated cost of crime in this Houston suburb – which the study calculated as the "societal cost of crime per resident" – was $471 in 2023.

Pearland's crime cost per capita is far lower the national crime cost, which was $2,178 per resident.

The report also analyzed the city's violent crime and property crime rates, and Pearland had the 11th lowest rate of violent crime in 2023 with only 106 crimes committed for every 100,000 residents.

The city didn't fare as well with its property crime rate; there were 1,669 property crimes committed in 2023 per 100,000 residents, which was the 68th lowest rate out of all 292 U.S. cities.

However, that's still a better rate than most places in the country. Pearland residents can be smug that they don't live in Oakland, California, which had the highest property crime rate in the nation with 10,117 crimes committed per 100,000 residents.

Finally, MoneyGeek determined each city's total cost of crime, which the study defines as the "economic losses attributed to crime and its cost to society (individuals, community and nationally) in millions."

In this metric, Pearland had the seventh-lowest total crime cost, which was less than $60 million in 2023.

While some of these statistics may seem scary, Tulane University associate professor of political science Geoffrey T. Dancy warns it is unwise to make assumptions about a city based solely on its crime rates.

"We live in an unequal society," said Dancy in the report. "One often overlooked indicator of that inequality is who gets to engage in the politics of safety. Those who are objectively safe often fear crime and act on it in the counterproductive policies they support. Those who are actually victimized by crime and terrorized by gun violence pay the price and are rarely heard."

Elsewhere in Texas, the Dallas suburb of Frisco nearly topped the list as the No. 2 safest city in America with a $287 crime cost per capita. Other safe Texas cities in the report include Plano (No. 18), Sugar Land (No. 20), McKinney (No. 22), Round Rock (No. 26), Grand Prairie (No. 42), and League City (No. 48).

The top 10 safest American cities for 2025 are:

No. 1 – Ramapo Town, New York
No. 2 – Frisco, Texas
No. 3 – Irvine, California
No. 4 – Fishers, Indiana
No. 5 – Lakewood Township, New Jersey
No. 6 – Cary, North Carolina
No. 7 – Pembroke Pines, Florida
No. 8 – Elk Grove, California
No. 9 – Surprise, Arizona
No. 10 – Sterling Heights, Michigan

For the purpose of the study, violent crime rates were determined based on the number of murders and non-negligent manslaughters, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults per 100,000 residents; and property crimes were defined as the rates of burglary, larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft offenses per 100,000 residents.

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