A couple of questions I would ask myself is:
- is your kid independent enough to be ok with attending a huge public flagship like UF with 35K undergrads vs 4K undergrads at Rice.
- which college has a better program for your kid's area of study?
- have you saved enough college $$ to make up the difference without being a hardship on you and your family?
- Does he prefer living and studying in Gainesville or Houston and will he seek job opportunities in his college city after graduation?
- Which college has better research and internship opportunities?
- Is he ok with large class sizes, especially when taking lower division classes?
It a very personal decision, but if Rice checks off most of the above boxes and UF does not, than I would lean towards Rice (and have him take out the 27K in loans and you make up the difference). Sometimes “free” does not mean “better deal”…
With that said, from a practical sense, he isn’t likely to get into Rice anyways as its so competitive, so at least you give it a shot but will have other opportunities with his stats.