Rice, Harvard and tuition
In wake of a rising tide of calls for top universities to use more of their endowment money to help students with the cost of tuition, Harvard has severely lowered tuition for students from middle and upper class families (see story, page 1).
This seems to be a good answer, but the real question is: What does this mean for us, Rice? Will this steal away potential Rice students? Will this ruin Rice’s reputation as a best buy school?
We do not think there is much to worry about, for two reasons. First, there is nothing Rice actually can do in this situation. Rice has doubled the loan threshold while struggling to keep tuition below the symbolic $30,000 mark. The endowment is already being stretched to the limit and large donations are earmarked for specific projects and cannot necessarily go towards helping tuition issues. All the while, faculty are clamoring for deserved pay raises while students bemoan even a market-based tuition hike. The administration is stuck between an ivy-covered rock and a very hard place.
Rice could spend money out of the endowment to lower tuition, but this would merely be a temporary band-aid that would lower returns — and raise the amount of money needed from tuition revenue — in the long run.
Rice could also follow in the steps of many small liberal arts schools by massively raising tuition but offering large amounts of financial aid, essentially lowering the price for poorer students while raising it for the wealthy. Unfortunately, this system leaves out those middle-class families who may not quality for financial aid but who cannot stretch their budgets without suffering major lifestyle changes, leading to highly polarized student bodies where the difference between students who pay full price and students receiving aid is all too clear.
In contrast, Rice seems to have a sense of middle-class egalitarianism, where a full spectrum of students is represented. So while Rice’s tuition may seem to be growing, which it is, it is doing so in a way that tries to maintain the Rice social status quo.
And honestly, we do not think that many students turn down admission to Harvard or Yale to come to Rice because of the cost, which leads to the second reason not to worry: Rice is not Harvard.
Rice is not the Harvard of the South and Harvard is not the Rice of the North. They are two completely different schools and it is time to abandon comparisons between them. Students come to Rice because they want Rice: Our small size, our college system and our student body.
Instead, Rice should be compared to schools that are actually on our level, places like Washington University at St. Louis, Duke and Emory. When Rice’s tuition is viewed in context of comparable schools, the university still has a financial advantage that makes it unique. However, the gap is closing and once we fall off the “Best Buy” list, it will be rather difficult to get back on. So for the time being, administrators have to make sure that Rice remains cheap, small and academically excellent. After all, what else can they do?
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