Rice’s enrollment expansion should preserve campus culture, tradition
Rice is growing again, and President Reggie DesRoches isn’t wrong when he says it’s a good thing.
In a time when universities across the country are scaling back access and diversity, Rice’s commitment to expanding enrollment and financial aid is a welcome step in a more inclusive direction.
DesRoches said his goal is to expand access and redefine what it means to be an elite university.
We agree — but meaningful access is about more than admission offers. If Rice is going to grow, it needs to ensure that growth doesn’t come at the expense of the student experience.
In fall 2024, only 59% of undergraduate students were living on campus. However, the General Announcements page on Undergraduate Student Life claimed that around 70% of Rice undergraduates live on campus.
The residential college system is integral to what makes Rice unique: a culture of connection, collaboration and care. But that culture is increasingly strained. Hundreds of students are forced to live off campus each year due to lack of space in their college, and others preemptively move out in anticipation of getting “kicked off.”
Adding seats in a lecture hall is the easy part. The harder work is making sure the students who fill those seats can still experience the Rice we claim to be: a close-knit, residential community that prizes a diversity of perspectives.
When students are scattered across Houston housing markets without adequate support, the system that binds us together begins to fray.
Rice should consider how to keep campus culture alive as it expands, starting with housing.
Building two more colleges helps, but it is not enough. If growth is truly about access, the university should guarantee at least three years of on-campus housing or provide real financial support for those pushed off campus.
Housing, though, is only half the puzzle. A larger student body must also be a more connected one.
More students means more perspectives, more identities, more experiences — and a greater need to invest in the systems that help them build community.
Growth without support risks weakening the very things that make Rice worth growing in the first place.
We’re glad Rice is expanding. Now it’s time to expand what really matters: belonging.
News Editor James Cancelarich was recused from this editorial due to corresponding reporting in the News section.
Editor’s Note: Thresher editorials are collectively written by the members of the Thresher’s editorial board. Current members include Sarah Knowlton, Kathleen Ortiz, Juliana Lightsey, Riya Misra, James Cancelarich, Noa Berz, Jenna Perrone, Arman Saxena, Andersen Pickard and Evie Vu.
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