Rice University in Houston tops the new list of best colleges in Texas for 2025

The most prestigious higher education institution in Houston has done it again: Rice University has topped WalletHub’s 2025 list of the best colleges and universities in Texas for 2025.

The just-released list analyzed more than 800 colleges and universities across the United States across 30 metrics to determine their rankings.

Rice ranked first in Texas and in WalletHub’s regional category of Best Southern Universities. The school was also ranked as the sixth best college in the country.

Rice ranked first in the category for the “best” (or lowest) crime rates on campus and ranked 13th for its gender and racial diversity. The school placed 24th in the net cost category. Accordingly US News and World Report, Tuition and fees at Rice cost $60,709 per year. Rice also has an admission rate of eight percent, ranking the university 27th in the admissions category.

Here’s how WalletHub broke down the rest of the Rice rankings, with #1 being the best and #49 being the worst:

• #26 – Student-Faculty Ratio
• #43 – Graduation Rate
• #47 – Median salary after participation

Rice’s recent accolades add to an ongoing winning streak with high placings. In September, the private university was ranked the best college in Texas for 2025 US Newsand ranked 18th nationally. Educational information and review platform niche Additionally, Rice was recently named the 15th best college in the country and the No. 1 best college in Texas for 2025. And Forbes Rice was ranked No. 9 in the 2024-25 Best U.S. Colleges list. In the spring, Rice’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business was ranked No. 2 in the national publication’s ranking of the best graduate schools in Texas.

The only other Houston university to earn a spot in the WalletHub report was University of Houstonreaching No. 12 in Texas and No. 288 nationally.

The top five universities that surpassed Rice in the national rankings were Princeton University (No. 1), Yale University (No. 2), Harvard University (No. 3), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (No. 4) and Dartmouth College (No. 5).

The top ten colleges and universities in Texas are:

• #1 – Rice University
• #2 – The University of Texas at Austin
• #3 – Trinity University
• #4 – Texas A&M University-College Station
• #5 – Southwestern University
• #6 – Texas Christian University
• #7 – Austin College
• #8 – Texas A&M International University
• #9 – University of Dallas
• #10 – Southern Methodist University

Find the full report at wallethub.com

——

This article originally appeared on CultureMap.