<p>As you all likely know, tuition at Rice cost nothing for much of the school's history. My question is this: if, by the courtesy of a generous mega-donor, students accepted to Rice no longer had to pay any tuition, do you think that would make more qualified high school seniors interested in coming? Or, alternatively, would that make a Rice education appear "cheap" compared to other selective private schools, and therefore less desirable?</p>
<p>This may sound like a no-brainer question, but people often associate higher prices with greater quality, believing that having a high sticker price must surely mean the education offered is top notch. </p>
<p>What do you guys think? What effect would giving full-rides to all prospective students most likely have on Rice's "pull factor," especially compared to peer universities like Emory, Duke, Stanford, Ivies, etc.?</p>
<p>Tuition accounts for 19% or $104.7m of Rice’s operating revenue. I think this figure includes financial aid dollars as well. See [Sources</a> and Uses : Rice University](<a href=“Rice University”>Rice University)</p>
<p>Rice’s endowment’s return is between 10-20% per year, which would mean that for Rice to go tuition-free again, a donor would have to establish an endowment for ~$750m - $1b to sustain itself in perpetuity. This seems like an enormous amount of money to pony up, so I don’t think it’s realistic. However, if Rice’s endowment grows over the next decade or so, perhaps it can reduce the share of operating income dependent on tuition thereby lowering or eliminating it. One wonders why Harvard charges any tuition… maybe to keep applications low (relatively)?</p>
<p>I don’t believe tuition-free would “cheapen” Rice’s name. I think it would only add to it. Look at Olin College, which before the financial mess of 2008 used to provide a full tuition scholarship to all accepted students. </p>
<p>Also, I wouldn’t call Emory a peer school. Duke, yes.</p>
<p>Hmm… $0.75-1.00 billion. Endowment growth would help, no doubt, or even a fundraising campaign. The Centennial Campaign aims to raise $1 billion, and already has nearly $800 million of it. Granted, this is a special campaign and the biggest in Rice’s history, but I do think the university could pull off a similarly sized fundraiser again. Also, $1 billion is indeed a very significant sum, but it’s not out of reach for a group of interested mega-donors. So, I’d say achieving free tuition would be difficult but not terribly unrealistic if this were something the university, alumni, and friends came to believe would be beneficial. </p>
<p>One would think the added benefit would include making the school more attractive to the students in our applicant pool, thus improving our yield relative to our peers, allowing us to have an even more selective student body. If offering full-rides to everyone would help ensure that even more of the best students come to Rice, I think most would agree it’s worth it, especially in the long run. I just wasn’t sure it would have an opposite, undesired effect. </p>
<p>I was going to say that I included Emory as a peer school because Rice expressly considers all of the COFHE schools to be its peers, but then I checked and, oddly, Emory is not a member. Hmm… Emory IS a member of the AAU, though, so that should qualify it as a peer institution, right?</p>
<p>I think a question I would have about a free tuition school would be about what financial aid / merit aid would be available for room/board? My S is a NMSF and there are many schools who offer free tuition. We don’t even look at those as we cannot afford the room/board, so the free tuition is truly meaningless. S is looking at other schools whose financial aid should more than cover tuition and are better matches.</p>
<p>In regards to the perception of Rice’s value based on free tuition. I don’t think it would be negative at all. I think it would be a good thing for Rice.</p>
<p>As a student who has never lived in Texas or the Southwest, I hadn’t heard of Rice until I began my college search. And once I had, I still couldn’t find anything relatively standout about the university that made it worth further research. (I, like crazymomster, am focusing on schools that offer significant NMSF/NMF scholarships.)</p>
<p>If we were to consider Emory a peer school, there are few fundamental differences that standout between the two for someone who hasn’t researched in depth. Both are located in large cities in the southern half of the U.S., both have birds for mascots, decent financial aid, and both are ranked in the Top 20 by U.S. News. </p>
<p>Schools that offer free or reduced tuition like Olin, Deep Springs, Cooper Union, and Berea are often brought up simply for their lesser cost. A school of Rice’s caliber, with a student body of 3,000 (I pretty sure that’s twice the size of the other schools I just named), and such a range of majors would really make waves and gain attention. Not to mention, it’d be one aspect of the university that someone such as myself would be deeply aware of. It could be a game changer, and would really encourage the diversity that colleges seem to strive for, because of the definitively reduced sticker shock.</p>