Working for Rice is a hoot!
There’s so much to love about being a Rice employee: comprehensive benefits, exclusive discounts on campus, access to great services and facilities, and even connections to the Houston community. Our goal is to list as many as we can here to make sure everyone takes full advantage of the unconventional perks Rice has to offer.
Faculty Club at the Cohen House
Fondren Library and Digital Media Center
Additional Perks:
- Seasonal Flu Shots
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Rice provides on-campus seasonal flu shots and health screenings to all benefits-eligible faculty and staff annually. Look for an email announcing the dates and times each year
- Rice Bookstore Discounts
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All Rice employees may stop by the bookstore and enjoy 10 percent off of everything except textbooks, computer software, and computer hardware.
- Banking Perks
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As a Rice University employee, you may have access to membership and special discounts at several area banks, including Smart Financial Credit Union, Frost Bank, and Chase Bank.
- Commuter Benefits
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Train. Bus. Vanpool. Parking your car at the station or at a non-Rice facility. However you ride, the Commuter Benefits Program lets you pay for your eligible commuting costs through automatic, pre-tax payroll deductions. It works wherever you do: for any transit system, anywhere, plus any non-Rice parking provider or vanpool operator nationwide.
Rice has partnered with the MetroStar program to offer you the opportunity to participate in vanpooling with other people that live and work in the same area. To get started, you will want to click on one of the following links most applicable to you. You will complete a brief confidential profile regarding your commuting needs (work schedule, location, etc.). MetroStar will review and contact you regarding routes and availability for you.
For additional information, visit the Health Equity website.
- Equipment Checkout Services
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Need access to electronic equipment that you don’t have? No problem. Fondren Library and the Digital Media Commons (DMC) partner to allow employees to check out still cameras, video cameras, adapters, lighting, tripods, microphones, computers, and more with a Rice ID.
- Public Service Loan Forgiveness
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Rice University is a qualified employer under the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program.
The PSLF Program forgives the remaining balance on your Direct Loans after you have made 120 qualifying monthly payments (or 10 years of payments) under a qualifying repayment plan while working full-time for a qualifying employer.
To be considered for PSLF, you only need to submit a PSLF form. The easiest way to do this is by using the PSLF Help Tool. The PSLF Help Tool allows you to:
- Prepare and sign your PSLF form, and request certification and signature from your employer—all electronically
- Generate your PSLF form for manual signature and submission to the PSLF servicer (if electronic submission isn’t possible).
For more information, visit studentaid.gov.
- Smoking Cessation
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Rice has implemented a tobacco/nicotine user surcharge of $50/month/user. We will ask you questions during open enrollment that will allow us to determine if you, your spouse, or both of you are tobacco/nicotine users. If you want help in quitting, we have a tobacco cessation program for benefits eligible faculty and staff calledm Pelago (formerly Quit Genius). There is no cost to you for Pelago.