State profile · RI
Rhode Island
Rhode Island has 12 degree-granting institutions in this data. Between them they award 1,078 research doctorates and 4,392 master’s degrees over the window, and take $373.1m in federal research and development money.
This page counts every institution in the state, including the ones that award no graduate degree at all. Leaving those out would make a state look like its flagship.
institutions in the state
6 award a research doctorate. 0 enrol no graduate students at all.
of research doctorates go to non-residents
416 of 1,078. National figure: 38.9%.
of graduate enrolment is non-resident
1,901 of 11,377 graduate students.
federal research and development money
Across 7 institutions. $290.6m in total federal obligations.
Where Rhode Island sits
The non-resident share of research doctorates, against the same figure for the country. That is level with the national figure of 38.9%.
Rhode Island ranks 30 of 52 states on that share, and 37 of 56 on the number of research doctorates it awards. Rank 1 is the highest. Only states that award doctorates are ranked.
Undergraduate and graduate, side by side
The same institutions at two levels. Undergraduate is the remainder once graduate enrolment is taken out of the total, and both levels carry their own non-resident count. In Rhode Island the graduate share is 11.9 points higher than the undergraduate share.
Click any column heading to sort. Click it again to reverse. The panel under the table narrows what is shown — everything is shown until you ask for less.
| Institution | Undergraduates | Non-res | Share | Graduates | Non-res | Share | State funding | Federal R&D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of Rhode Island | 14,670 | 172 | 1.2% | 2,681 | 282 | 10.5% | $112.8m | $137.5m |
| Brown University | 7,741 | 1,022 | 13.2% | 3,775 | 1,255 | 33.2% | — | $374.5m |
| Rhode Island College | 4,785 | 11 | 0.2% | 982 | 1 | 0.1% | $69.4m | — |
| Providence College | 4,191 | 63 | 1.5% | 444 | 23 | 5.2% | — | $5.9m |
| Johnson & Wales University-Providence | 3,952 | 142 | 3.6% | 420 | 49 | 11.7% | — | — |
| Roger Williams University | 4,050 | 45 | 1.1% | 294 | 7 | 2.4% | — | $3.7m |
| Bryant University | 3,240 | 176 | 5.4% | 352 | 34 | 9.7% | — | $459,000 |
| Salve Regina University | 2,117 | 70 | 3.3% | 719 | 5 | 0.7% | — | — |
| Johnson & Wales University-Online | 1,990 | 15 | 0.8% | 607 | 4 | 0.7% | — | — |
| Rhode Island School of Design | 2,092 | 701 | 33.5% | 448 | 229 | 51.1% | — | $5.1m |
| New England Institute of Technology | 1,712 | 0 | 0.0% | 138 | 5 | 3.6% | — | — |
| Roger Williams University School of Law | 0 | 0 | — | 517 | 7 | 1.4% | — | — |
The two levels diverge most at Brown University: 13.2% of its 7,741 undergraduates and 33.2% of its 3,775 graduate students. These are different admissions systems with different applicant pools, different money and different reasons to say yes, and a single state figure hides both.
2,417 of 50,540 undergraduates and 1,901 of 11,377 graduate students.
What the state figure is an average of
The largest graduate enrolments in Rhode Island, each with its own non-resident share. Nothing here is excluded from the figures above. The point is to show what they are made of.
| Institution | Graduate students | Share of the state | Non-resident |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brown University | 3,775 | 33.2% | 33.2% |
| University of Rhode Island | 2,681 | 23.6% | 10.5% |
| Rhode Island College | 982 | 8.6% | 0.1% |
| Salve Regina University | 719 | 6.3% | 0.7% |
| Johnson & Wales University-Online | 607 | 5.3% | 0.7% |
| Roger Williams University School of Law | 517 | 4.5% | 1.4% |
One institution is moving this figure
Brown University holds 33.2% of the graduate enrolment in Rhode Island and is 33.2% non-resident. Take it out and the rest of the state is 8.5%, against 16.7% with it in. A state average is not a description of its universities when one of them is most of the state.
Practical training, and the other student visas
A student visa does not end at graduation. Optional Practical Training lets a graduate work on the same visa, and a STEM degree adds a further twenty-four months. It applies at both levels, so the undergraduate share above is not the end of the story.
No institution in Rhode Island appears in SEVP’s published lists, which cover the top 100 and top 200 schools for OPT and STEM OPT. There is therefore no published practical training figure for this state. That is a fact about what the agency releases, not a statement that no one here is on OPT.
J-1 physicians. Rhode Island is not in the published top twelve states for J-1 physicians in graduate medical education, which is the only state breakdown ECFMG publishes. That is an absence from a short list, not a zero.
In-state against out-of-state
Public four-year institutions, FY2024. Every foreign student pays the out-of-state rate, so this is the price attached to the non-resident column everywhere else on this page.
An out-of-state student in Rhode Island is worth 2.16× an in-state one to the institution. They are 44.0% of the students and 59.2% of the tuition revenue.
| Measure | In-state | Out-of-state |
|---|---|---|
| Share of students (FTE) | 56.0% | 44.0% |
| Net tuition and fees collected per student | $8,679 | $18,721 |
| Share of tuition revenue | 34.9% | 59.2% |
Out-of-state is not the same as foreign. SHEEO counts international students and domestic students from other states in one column. This shows what a non-resident pays, never how many of them are foreign. Figures are net tuition and fee revenue per full-time-equivalent student — what the institution actually collected after its own aid, not the published price. Public four-year institutions only; medical FTE excluded.
Every institution
Largest first by total enrolment. A dash means the institution awards none of that degree, or that no federal research money was matched to it.
| Institution | City | Control | Enrolled | Graduate | Master’s | Non-res | Doctorates | Non-res | Federal R&D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of Rhode Island | Kingston | public | 17,351 | 2,681 | 710 | 118 | 485 | 139 | $137.5m |
| Brown University | Providence | private nonprofit | 11,516 | 3,775 | 2,682 | 1,432 | 1,198 | 483 | $374.5m |
| Rhode Island College | Providence | public | 5,767 | 982 | 92 | 0 | 25 | 0 | — |
| Providence College | Providence | private nonprofit | 4,635 | 444 | 34 | 9 | — | — | $5.9m |
| Johnson & Wales University-Providence | Providence | private nonprofit | 4,372 | 420 | 76 | 51 | 68 | 1 | — |
| Roger Williams University | Bristol | private nonprofit | 4,344 | 294 | 159 | 4 | — | — | $3.7m |
| Bryant University | Smithfield | private nonprofit | 3,592 | 352 | 26 | 14 | — | — | $459,000 |
| Salve Regina University | Newport | private nonprofit | 2,836 | 719 | 154 | 3 | 74 | 0 | — |
| Johnson & Wales University-Online | Providence | private nonprofit | 2,597 | 607 | 85 | 0 | 47 | 2 | — |
| Rhode Island School of Design | Providence | private nonprofit | 2,540 | 448 | 332 | 200 | — | — | $5.1m |
| New England Institute of Technology | East Greenwich | private nonprofit | 1,850 | 138 | 42 | 8 | — | — | — |
| Roger Williams University School of Law | Bristol | private nonprofit | 517 | 517 | — | — | — | — | — |
Degrees are pooled over 2021–2025. Enrolment and federal money are the most recent year in the file. “Non-res” means a student here on a temporary visa, almost always F-1 or J-1. A green card holder is not counted in it.
How few institutions this is
Of the 12 institutions in Rhode Island, 6 award a research doctorate at all, and the largest two award 88.7% of them. A state’s graduate pipeline is a much smaller thing than its list of colleges.
| Institution | Research doctorates | Non-resident | Share | Share of the state’s doctorates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brown University | 1,198 | 483 | 40.3% | 63.2% |
| University of Rhode Island | 485 | 139 | 28.7% | 25.6% |
| Salve Regina University | 74 | 0 | 0.0% | 3.9% |
| Johnson & Wales University-Providence | 68 | 1 | 1.5% | 3.6% |
| Johnson & Wales University-Online | 47 | 2 | 4.3% | 2.5% |
| Rhode Island College | 25 | 0 | 0.0% | 1.3% |
The foreign share of graduate students, where the survey reaches
The NSF Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates asks institutions directly, and it covers 4 of the 12 institutions in Rhode Island. It is a different measure from the degree counts above: enrolled students rather than degrees awarded.
| Institution | Doctoral students foreign | Master’s students foreign |
|---|---|---|
| University of Rhode Island | 39.9% | 12.5% |
| Brown University | 39.0% | 48.6% |
| Rhode Island College | —% | 0.0% |
| Roger Williams University | —% | 1.9% |
University of Rhode Island
The highest foreign share of doctoral students in the state, at 39.9%. It is not the largest institution here and it is not the one with the most federal money. Size and share are different questions, and a state page that ranked only by size would not show this.
What the state itself puts in
State appropriations per full-time-equivalent student, from the SHEEO finance survey, against the change in the foreign share of graduate enrolment over the same window.
| Measure | First year | Last year | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| State appropriations per FTE student | $6,584 | $8,341 | +26.7% |
| Foreign share of graduate enrolment | 5.0% | 7.7% | +2.7 pts |
These two rows move for their own reasons. Nothing here shows that one caused the other, and the page does not say it did.
What is not published for a state this size
Two of the measures this site uses elsewhere do not exist at this scale, and the reason is the same in both cases: the agency publishes a ranked extract rather than the whole file.
- Practical training is not published here. SEVP releases the top 100 and top 200 schools for OPT and STEM OPT, not every school. An institution outside those lists has no published figure at all. Its absence is a fact about the list, not about the institution, and it must never be read as a zero.
- Student visa counts are not published by state. DHS reports SEVIS records nationally and names a few states per region in its commentary. For most states it publishes a percentage change and no count, so the number of foreign students physically in a state cannot be read off the federal release.
- Enrolment is the measure that does exist. IPEDS asks every institution directly, which is why this page is built from it. It counts students enrolled, not visas issued, and the two are different questions.
Method and limits
- Non-resident means here on a temporary visa. IPEDS defines it as a person “who is not a citizen or national of the United States and who is in this country on a visa or temporary basis and does not have the right to remain indefinitely.” A green card holder is therefore never counted here. Neither is a refugee or an asylee. Those students are reported in the race and ethnicity categories alongside citizens. For students the category is overwhelmingly F-1 and J-1.
- It is not ethnicity and not country of origin. A US-born citizen of any background is never non-resident. The status is recorded when the student enrols, for the enrolment figures, and when the degree is awarded, for the degree counts. These files cannot be split any other way.
- Degrees are pooled over 2021–2025, because a single year at a small institution moves on one student.
- Enrolment and awards are different measures and will not agree. One counts people on a given day; the other counts degrees conferred over five years.
- Federal money is matched to a campus, and a system that reports centrally can carry money its branches spend.
- This page shows composition, not displacement. It records who received the degrees. It does not show that anyone was kept out, and nothing here should be read that way.
Built by scripts/build_state_pages.py from
institution_profiles.json,
state_funding_and_enrolment.json
and university_distribution.json.
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