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As a leading research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University aspires to pathbreaking research, unsurpassed teaching and contributions to the betterment of our world. It seeks to fulfill this mission by cultivating a diverse community of learning and discovery that produces leaders across the spectrum of human endeavor. Education has remained at the center of Rice University¡¯s mission since the school opened in 1912. Rice combines the advantages of a liberal arts college with the resources and facilities of a premier research university. Our students have unparalleled opportunities to learn from distinguished faculty through classroom interaction, research collaboration and experiential opportunities. Some of the important engineering and science developments include Rice becoming the first university in the nation with a department wholly dedicated to space science; Rice researchers joining Dr. Michael DeBakey and his Baylor College of Medicine team to produce the first artificial heart; and Rice professors Robert Curl, Richard Smalley and British chemist Sir Harold Kroto receiving the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their discovery of buckyballs, which introduced the field of nanotechnology. In addition to engineering, Rice has highly respected schools of architecture, business, continuing studies, humanities, music, natural sciences and social sciences. Rice also is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy, a nonpartisan think tank that has brought a distinctive voice to national policy dialogue, and the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, an interdisciplinary research organization that now conducts the longest ongoing study, over 40 years, of any metropolitan area in the U.S. It cultivates leadership and entrepreneurship skills in its students through the Doerr Institute for New Leaders and the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Students from all disciplines learn to work together to invent and problem solve in the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen. Several initiatives, including the Center for Civic Leadership, link Rice students with opportunities for research and service in the country¡¯s fourth-largest city. Rice welcomes students from all walks of life, many of them first generation, and supports their success with the Rice Emerging Scholars Program. Rice is consistently heralded as one of the best values in higher education. Rice practices need-blind admission of domestic students, meets 100 percent of all admitted students¡¯ demonstrated need. Beginning in fall 2019, Rice introduced a simple, generous financial aid plan. Updated for fall 2024, students with family incomes below $75,000 receive grant aid covering their full tuition and all of their mandatory fees and room and board. Domestic students from middle-income families with typical assets receive grant aid to cover at least full tuition if they earn up to $140,000 a year, and at least half tuition for families earning between $140,001 and $200,000. Located on a 300-acre wooded campus in the heart of Houston, Rice is surrounded by the Texas Medical Center, the Museum District, Hermann Park, Rice Village and a variety of restaurants, and is a short MetroRail ride, to the theater, symphony, ballet, opera and major league sports. The distinctive residential college system enhances the Rice experience by allowing students to flourish in a community of their peers. Minority students represent more than half of the undergraduate student body, and Rice ranks highly in national student surveys for quality of life and student happiness. Rice benefits from an undergraduate student-faculty ratio of just under 6:1, a median class size of 14 and an endowment of nearly $8 billion.