I love that Rice is adding 300 new first year student seats next year. Why don't more colleges add seats?

[Anonymous]

Rice is on the rise - very hot at my DS's school. It will be a great year to apply.

[Anonymous]

Great school. Too bad it's in Texas...

[Anonymous]

If Harvard wants to expand capacity to 100,000 students they can find enough students who are willing to pay full price. But then who would want to go to Harvard in that case?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If Harvard wants to expand capacity to 100,000 students they can find enough students who are willing to pay full price. But then who would want to go to Harvard in that case?

That’s really extreme. I agree with OP and have watched so many kids who want a school that’s mid-sized and there are so few of them. Lehigh just did this by adding a whole different health sciences division I think? and it was already a good size. It just seems like there are a whole lot of 2,400-student schools that could become 4,000-student schools where there’s less competition. But of course it takes money.

[Anonymous]

Well, do you want Rice to become Northeastern? Expanding and having satellite campuses everywhere? Is that what you want? Scarcity is the key.

[Anonymous]

I would think the biggest issue would be attracting quality and qualified professors.

[Anonymous]

Rice is a great school. And honestly except for the weather, Houston is a great city. Adding 300 students (presumably per year, over time) to a school in a location with a lot of real estate and zoning flexibility seems like a great idea. Probably harder for schools in other parts of the country.

[Anonymous]

Part of what I loved about going to Rice was the small student body. I had one class with three students and a full professor. I'd hate to see it get too big.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, do you want Rice to become Northeastern? Expanding and having satellite campuses everywhere? Is that what you want? Scarcity is the key.

Not like Northeastern...like Vandy maybe?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would think the biggest issue would be attracting quality and qualified professors.

You don't need more professors.

[Anonymous]

Yale did that last year. Middlebury too.

All these schools could add few hundred. More access is good

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, do you want Rice to become Northeastern? Expanding and having satellite campuses everywhere? Is that what you want? Scarcity is the key.

Rice is opening a new residential college, this isn’t comparable to Northeastern’s BS.

https://www.ricethresher.org/article/2025/08/rice-announces-chao-college-as-12th-residential-college

[Anonymous]

Like Emory's Oxford campus. Adding a few is fine.

[Anonymous]

Most Ivies not only guarantee four years of housing, living together in dorms (“colleges/halls”) is an integral part of the student experience. Providing housing on campus for all is a prerequisite to increasing intake. There’s scarcity in real estate for that.

[Anonymous]

Imagine: Rice to become Cornell …