High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The residential colleges of Rice University comprise eleven separate residential colleges which function as the primary housing, dining, and social organization for undergraduate students. The system was established in 1957 and was inspired by the residential college systems at the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge as well as the American adaptations of the same at Harvard and Yale. Each student is randomly affiliated with a residential college upon matriculation and becomes a lifetime member of the college. The residential college system takes the place of a greek system, and has contributed to a sense of community that other universities have sought to emulate.