In a contribution to the Emory Advantage program at Oxford College, Board of Trustee member John Rice and his wife Cammie have established The Nancy and Charles Rice Scholarship Fund to support students in need.

The scholarship, named after Rice’s parents, honors his late father and his parents’ dedication to and emphasis on higher education.

“It was a firm expectation in his family that he [John] sees that same set of values at Oxford,” Dean of Oxford College Stephen Bowen said.

What makes the contribution unique is that Rice does not have a direct connection to Oxford, according to Bowen.

But Rice, who is vice chairman of General Electric (GE) and president and CEO of GE Technology Infrastructure, has a niece who went to Oxford and is now a junior at Emory College. He co-chairs University’s Emory Advantage fundraising effort.

“Once they learned how effective the Oxford College education program is, they wanted to support it,” Bowen explained.

Rice said in an article in the Emory Report that the Oxford process is “a great model that needs to be supported.”

“The way young people can develop on the Oxford campus is special,” Rice said. “They progress and go on to become leaders at Emory.”

Bowen said the contribution comes at a particularly important time right now because so many families find themselves in need of financial aid. Tuition increases have been reported throughout the nation, with a 2.9 percent increase at Emory, a 3.8 percent increase at Harvard University and a 4.8 percent rise at Yale University.

“For Emory University to continue to attract the best and brightest, with the increasing cost of a college education, we’re going to have to find more ways to support students who don’t have the private financial means to attend,” Rice said in the Emory Report. “This is why I think financial aid is important and why Cammie and I have directed our gift to Emory Advantage.”

Emory Advantage is a financial aid initiative geared towards students from families with annual incomes of $100,000 or less. The initiative includes the Loan Replacement Grant (LRG), which will replace loans for undergraduate students with family incomes under $50,000, and the Loan Cap Program (LCP), which guarantees that undergraduate students with family incomes between $50,000 and $100,000 will graduate with no more than $15,000 in need-based loans.

While Rice’s contribution will be directed to Oxford, the Emory Advantage program also supports undergraduate students at the College, at the Goizueta Business School and at the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing.

— Contact Alice Chen.