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Located in an urban environment on a 300-acre tree-lined campus, Rice University seizes its advantageous position to pursue pathbreaking research and create innovative collaboration opportunities that contribute to the betterment of our world.

Boasting a 300-acre tree-lined campus in Houston, Rice University is ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has a 6-to-1 undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio, and a residential college system, which supports students intellectually, emotionally and culturally through social events, intramural sports, student plays, lectures series, courses and student government.

Developing close-knit, diverse college communities is a strong campus tradition, which is why Rice is highly ranked for best quality of life and best value among private universities.

The William M. Rice Institute for the Advancement of Literature, Science and Art filed its state charter in the Texas capital May 19, 1891. The original charter stipulated that the institute charge no tuition and would be for “the instruction and improvement of the white inhabitants of the City of Houston and State of Texas.

The institute was founded with a bequest of $4.6 million from the estate of William Marsh Rice, a merchant who arrived in Texas in 1838 and soon thereafter moved to the newly founded city of Houston. In the 1840s and 1850s, he accumulated his wealth by providing supplies to plantation owners and selling cotton and sugar crops, produced in large part by enslaved labor. Rice, too, owned and benefited from their labor. After the Civil War, he took the oath of loyalty to the restored United States and lived thereafter in New Jersey and New York.

While keeping a close eye on his many ongoing profitable endeavors in Texas. The childless Rice was murdered September 23, 1900, in New York by his butler and lawyer in an attempt to steal his fortune. After considerable litigation, Rice’s bequest in 1904 was deployed toward the purpose he intended — his namesake institute in the rapidly growing city of Houston.

After selecting Edgar Odell Lovett, a mathematician from Princeton University, to serve as the first president, the institute’s trustees sent Lovett on an international trip in search of the best pedagogical practices, ideas and personnel.