Just to clarify, students are not required to live off campus at Rice and if they do, it’s not always junior year. Each residential college has it owns rules about housing and there is a risk of living off campus one year. At some colleges it’s sophomore year and some it’s junior. I believe Rice can house more than 70% of students now on campus and is building more housing to increase that to over 80%. Some students choose to live off campus after freshmen year (this seems especially common for athletes) and some end up not getting a room on campus and realizing they like apartment/house living and never go back. A parent on the parent board who was MOST upset about her daughter not getting housing sophomore year, now has a student who loves living off campus and doesn’t want to go back. But a decent number of students end up staying on campus for 4 years - mine was one of them. It really just depends on the residential college and sometimes a little luck.
Rice is in the middle of a large city and across the street from the biggest med center in the world. There are a LOT of housing options nearby. But, it’s in a high income part of the city so housing close to the campus can be a bit more expensive than if you live further out. It’s not like California expensive though (my daugher lived near Berkeley one summer for an internship and her rent was 3-4 times what it was the year she rented rear Rice for grad school). But more and more super student friendly housing is being built close to campus by companies who realize they have a good flow of customers.