<p>anxiousmom is right. Just follow my dad, an engineering professor, around for a week and you’d be exhausted! He devotes a lot of time and energy to his undergrad and grad students. He usually comes up to Maine for a couple of weeks during the summer, and he always brings several theses and dissertations to review carefully. Most nights of the week, he is up past midnight. He LOVES his job, and it’s the students, not the research, that energize him.</p>
<p>National Merit Scholarships have been Rice’s primary merit “candy”, capped at low amounts outside of demonstrated need. After that, mostly small departmental awards.</p>
<p>CSS/PROFILE, not FAFSA, is what kills.</p>
<p>I don’t know - our Rice FA ended up being just about what the FAFSA said it would be, even with PROFILE info… (And that’s 6 years of Rice FA, with two different kids. One more year to go…)</p>
<p>I’ve heard chatter–whether this is actually the case, I don’t know–that Rice is in fact trying to reach tuition parity with its competitors. Lots of students, the argument goes, don’t want to attend a “Best Value” institution. There’s something to that, maybe. Getting a “good deal” on a mattress is one thing, getting a “good deal” on an education is another. Until students and their families decide that they don’t want to or can’t foot the bills, it’ll continue to climb everywhere.</p>