According the NPC, Rice costs more than we are interested in paying. But Kiplinger’s Guide implies that it should cost less and Rice is also frequently mentioned on the CC FA board as a good school for merit. So, I am a bit confused and wondering if we should take it off the list or not.
Was your NPC pretty close?
I attended an info session at Rice where the admissions person clearly stressed that the NPC is accurate.
What you are seeing in the numbers is that Rice is very generous to families with an income under a certain point (I don’t know what that level is). For people earning in the $120,000+ range, I think the EFC soars quickly.
Looking at the Common Data Set, you will see that 62 freshman (out of about 950 freshman) were awarded non-need based aid and that the average award was just under $23,000. These are the scholarships.
But this number is also important. Only 377 freshman (out of about 950 freshman) were determined to have NEED.
If you add the students who received financial aid to the students who received merit aid, there were 439 students who received money.
56 freshman students were awarded an athletic scholarship.
594 students received money/356 were full pay.
Rice’s tuition is a little lower in price than Duke and Vanderbilt. So Rice does cost a bit less, but the price difference is fairly insignificant if you are full pay.
Thanks for responding, I’ll probably take Rice off the list, probably Vandy and Duke too. I’m only willing to go full pay for Stanford or an ivy, otherwise it’ll be some state school with an honors college and large scholarships.
We are in the same boat. Either public honors or a large merit scholarship. I think getting a merit scholarship to Rice, Duke or Vandy is very low odds. Tulane is generous with merit to kids with strong stats.
Good luck with this.
Thanks for the tip. I’l try out Tulane’s NPC.
So you would go full pay for Dartmouth, but not Rice? That seems ridiculous. The Ivy League is a sports league… the education is just as strong at some outside schools.
Dartmouth in particular is not on our radar. But yes, I would pay for HYPSM, Penn, Columbia, or Cornell. I know the education is just as strong at other schools but the name recognition and prestige is not as strong. For groceries, cars, apparel, etc. I don’t pay extra for name brands but if by chance my kid was accepted into one of these and it was a good fit, I would totally break the piggy bank. Too each his own.
But with a large enough scholarship we’d totally
Wow Cornell ? really?
And we wonder where the students out here get their obsession with name brands…
Cornell, yep! I have a family member who went to Cornell for 1 year and dropped out because it wasn’t affordable, but man was that 1 year valuable. The knowledge gained, connections made and the name brand lead to a a very high income without a degree.
This is the Rice board, Rice is a pretty strong name brand compared to most State U’s. So, surely you recognize and appreciate that even though the education like most places is what you make of it.