It's great that another really good school is entering the MBA market. My only bias is that Rice is a very good school that has this delusion that they're an uber elite school. They price their offerings so far out of range given the relative quality of the program that they're just not affordable for anyone other than a rich Texas oil baby with a trust fund who couldn't quite get the grades to make it into Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc. OK, rant over. By the way, that wasn't in any way directed at you, Sanatone.
I don't care too much about college rankings because I think they are biased. However, if we go by the U.S. News Ranking, Rice is ranked #16 nationally, which is the same ranking as Cornell, the lowest ranked of the 8 Ivy League universities. Also, Rice is offering free tuition starting in Fall 2019 so I there won't be an issue with affordability anymore. Furthermore, their current tuition of 48k is just 3k more than the University of Scranton, which is no match for Rice. I'm pretty sure 48k a year is typical for many private schools. "Full tuition scholarships and grants will be offered to students from middle-income families under a new financial aid plan titled The Rice Investment. Under The Rice Investment program, full tuition scholarships will be awarded to degree-seeking undergraduates with family incomes between $65,000 and $130,000 who are eligible to receive need-based financial aid. In addition, students with family incomes between $130,000 and $200,000 will receive scholarships covering at least half of their tuition. Support for students from low-income families will also be significantly enhanced under the program, and students with family incomes below $65,000 will receive grant aid covering not only their full tuition but also all of their mandatory fees and room and board."
Overall, Rice is pretty elite; however, their business school is not elite. The free tuition doesn't apply to graduate students. The program is 54 credits at $1,995 per credit hour. Plus, you have to pay a couple of thousand more for the in-person intensives.
Not like I'm saying it's a bad school, Chris. It's a very good school. And maybe we're talking apples-oranges, you might be checking out their undergrad program rankings, I'm talking about their MBA program. Their MBA's ranked #26 in USN, one notch behind U of Florida, which is less than a third as much for in-state, about 60% of the price for out-of-state. And at Florida, you have SEC football going on and they don't always get blown away on Saturdays (I guess Rice did have a pretty good team about a half dozen years ago, but traditionally, they've been turds). Anyway, they're so darned expensive. There just seems to be this pretentiousness, they call themselves the "Harvard of the South"--though at least they don't refer to Harvard as the "Rice of the North". Anyway, there are a whole lot of schools, including all 6 of the Ivies with an MBA program, ahead of them. I'll admit they're not every bit as expensive as the Ivies, though.
Sanatone: I know the free tuition only applied to undergrad. It's stated in the direct quote portion of my reply. FTFaculty: I understand your point of view. I was only viewing the university's ranking as a whole and not a specific school/college. However, like you and Sanatone have said, I agree that their business school is nothing to boast about.
The most important element has been neglected. The Rice University women's athletic teams have been much better than average, sending a number of teams to their respective NCAA tournaments. Go Owls! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_Owls
With many top or second tier programs available at reasonable cost; makes one wonder if this will eventually impact down the food chain.
There are so many online MBA available it's difficult to choose. Price is a good index and it's not clear, in this "check the box" employment world that a high priced MBA is consistently better from a ROI perspective. So why pay the Price of Rice? You can point to rankings but it's not clear to me that rankings are a predictor of outcome. So, is it worth it? What do you actually get for all that "extra" money? One thing you get is a championship women's soccer team. I'm guessing this program will succeed. They will fill their slots. Maybe with soccer fans. It's possible.
Also, I just learned that the school colors are blue and grey. I don’t know about you but I could make that work.
I have a lot of family from Texas and all I heard was Rice is the Harvard of the South. So I went and got a MBA from Columbia Southern....so I guess they are the Columbia of the South ...LOL
Hey, #26 is something to boast about. My MBA program has ranged from being ranked in the 50s to the 80s over the years, so I'd love to have an MBA from Rice. But I could never afford it. My b-school cost about $30K online for the whole program.
From the website... "In 1912, Rice's first president, Edgar Odell Lovett, chose as the school colors "a blue still deeper than the Oxford blue" and "the Confederate gray, enlivened by a tinge of lavender." It has been suggested that blue and gray were chosen in recognition of the fact that Rice's founder amassed much of the fortune that formed the initial endowment of the Rice Institute by trading with both the North and the South during the Civil War." https://www.rice.edu/traditions.shtml
Had no idea, Kizmet, thought I was just being cute, had no idea there was truth to that. Learn something new every day!
The Rice MBA should be a good degree to get for those who can swing the hybrid design. Expensive? Sure. However, you also get the Rice name and in the Southern portion of the United States, they are held in pretty high esteem. They may not be UT Austin but they are a very good university.
Rice has more prestige than UT Austin. If you're talking specifically business school, Austin may have the edge. However, as a whole, Rice is a more prestigious university.
Absolutely. I was generally speaking about their business program. It seems that McCombs has more prestige than Jones. That is just my take. Either are more than enough to land a position with a good company though.
