Rice among most diverse colleges

By Tina Nazerian     9/17/14 5:21pm

The New York Times placed Rice University on a list of the most economically diverse top colleges, calculating a College Access Index based on the number of freshmen coming from Pell Grant families in recent years and on the net price of attendance for low and middle class families.

Director of Student Financial Services Anne Walker said Rice is ranked 18th on Pell Grants in the country. 

“The Pell Grant basically goes to the neediest students,” Walker said. “These are extremely low-income families, and that has been kind of a tool to measure economic diversity. At schools like Rice, and those in our cohort [Consortium on Financing Higher Education], we have middle income students who still have excessive need.”

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Walker said because Rice covers 100 percent of unmet need, Pell Grant recipients get generous packages and have to pay little out of pocket to Rice.

“We don’t package loans for them,” Walker said. “They’ll have a small work study, $2500, if they choose to use that.”

However, Walker said the Pell Grant is not the largest part of the aid package.

“The largest part of the package comes from Rice,” Walker said.

According to Walker, if tuition increases and a family’s income has not changed, Rice covers the difference. However, she said if a family’s income goes up, or circumstances such as one child graduating college — making it so that a family no longer has two college students — change, then a family may not get as generous a package.

“The expected family contribution takes in lots of things — income, kids in college, some assets, not many, but [if] the Expected Family Contribution is below, they’ll receive a Pell Grant,” Walker said. 

Walker said the Office of Financial Aid does not provide loans for families with incomes under $80,000. 

“Many of those families do not receive Pell [Grants], so we’ve said for us, low income at Rice means under $80,000,” Walker said.

According to Walker, a lot of families look at their finances differently and each situation is unique. 

“Families that have high consumer debt, we don’t take that into consideration,” Walker said. “Families who pay for private high schools, we don’t take that into consideration. Families do have some costs, that when we’re looking at packaging them for aid, we may not consider, and rightfully so.”

Walker said economic diversity means diversity in all areas for the Office of Financial Aid. 

“[It means] social diversity, racial diversity, ethnic diversity,” Walker said. 

Duncan College sophomore Iqra Dada said she is not surprised Rice is on the list, because demographically, she believes Rice has a lot of variety in students’ background.

“[It’s] because of the amazing job the [Office of Financial Aid] does in making college affordable for low-income students,” Dada said.

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