Tuition, room, board and fees at Rice University next year will top $60,000 as public and private Texas universities grapple with accessibility to middle-class and low-income students.

Rice's tuition for undergraduates will be $46,600, the school announced Wednesday. Room and board will cost $14,000 and mandatory fees will amount to $745, for a total of $61,345.

Founded in 1912, the university did not charge tuition for much of its history, and it often touts appearances in national lists of best-value colleges. But Rice's costs, like many in higher education, have increased rapidly in recent years. Last year's sticker price was $59,458. In fall 2009, that figure was $43,287.

Many of the state's public institutions also lifted tuition this month, arguing that they needed the money to finance scholarships, teaching and research. The University of Texas System approved a 2 percent hike at the University of Texas at Austin and higher surges at its other universities. University of Houston System schools saw increases of more than 3 percent.

ADMISSIONS: Rice accepted just 11 percent of applicants this year. Many of their applications were read in under 10 minutes.

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Financial aid packages chip away at the total cost of attendance at Rice and elsewhere. Students with demonstrated financial need at Rice do not need to take out more than $10,000 in federal loans during four undergraduate years, according to the university, and students with family incomes of $80,000 or less do not need to take out loans.

Overall, though, many Texas students lean on loans to earn bachelor's degrees. Texas students in the Class of 2016 took on an average of $26,292 in debt, according to the Institute for College Access and Success, a non-profit advocacy organization with offices in Washington, D.C., and Oakland, Calif.

That figure, including graduates from public and private non-profit four-year colleges, ranked Texas 38th in average debt load nationwide.

In its announcement, Rice said it would expand its financial aid budget by more than 10 percent for next year.

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"We intend to address the needs of students from middle-class families, who are increasingly finding themselves priced out of the best in private higher education," President David Leebron said in a provided statement.

In 2016, Rice was one of the first universities to join the Bloomberg Philanthropies-backed American Talent Initiative, through which elite public and private institutions pledged to share strategies and data on how to recruit and retain lower-income students.

That coalition includes Harvard and Stanford Universities, which each also hiked tuition for next year. Rice's 2018-19 sticker price is roughly $6,000 less than Harvard's, at $67,580. Stanford's will be $67,117.

In a new strategic plan, Rice acknowledged that colleges and universities needed to show their value in a political climate that is increasingly skeptical of higher education's utility. Though most parents responding to a poll conducted this month by The New York Times and Morning Consult said it's important for their children to graduate from a four-year college or university, more than half said four-year universities cost too much money.

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Besides fundraising for financial aid, Rice said it would create stronger recruitment programs at community colleges to ensure a wide range of students are considering the university.

The plan also said Rice should help lower-income students transition into the university — like in summer programs before freshman year — so that they can succeed academically.

The university accepted about 11 percent of applicants this year after receiving a record-high 20,898 applications. Last year's acceptance rate was about 16 percent.

Lindsay Ellis writes about higher education for the Chronicle. You can follow her on Twitter and send her tips at lindsay.ellis@chron.com.