UH beats Rice in all-around value

The competition between the University of Houston and Rice University is one that only students at either campus knows about.

The rivalry isn’t even discussed much — that is, until the yearly match-up of football teams. Outside of the sports arena, Rice and UH don’t play many of the petty pride games that other universities often play. The difference in prestige and national rankings isn’t very close, and that won’t likely change in the near future.

A Rice University graduate who earns a bachelors of science in economics earns more than a UH student like myself. In May 2007, the average accepted salary of a Rice graduate with an economics degree was $57,180, according to a survey done by Rice University’s Center for Student Professional Development.

A UH student with a very similar economics degree on average made $48,483, according to the University’s economics department webpage. Earning ten thousand dollars more right off the bat would be great, especially after working so hard for four or more years.

The larger paycheck that a Rice graduate can expect may be because of the institution name printed on the diploma, or it may be due to a rating published in some magazine. Despite whatever reason, one thing is clear; Rice graduates paid for it.

The estimated cost of tuition and fees for the 2009-2010 school year for a Rice student totals $ 43,288.

A student who plans on studying at UH and qualifies for resident status will be looking at an estimated total cost of $ 16,418 per academic year. If the student is a non-resident, then the total estimated costs are $ 21,994.

The magnitude of those cost differences is staggering. A prospective non-resident student could finish half a four-year degree for the price of one academic year at Rice.

If a degree were earned at both institutions in exactly four academic years the difference is remarkable. For a student with resident status at UH, a four-year degree would total $65, 672 in estimated costs. A degree from Rice, on the other hand, would total $173,152 in estimated costs.

If you asked a really sharp student who had to take out loans for his or her education if they would rather make about $10,000 more per year starting out or have almost one-third the amount of debt to pay off, the answer is easy — and you wouldn’t even need a degree in economics to know it.