he University of Missouri was founded in 1839 in Columbia as the first public university west of the Mississippi River. Today, with an enrollment of more than 33,000 students, 13,000 full-time employees and 305,000 alumni, Mizzou is a $2.2 billion enterprise and an important investment for the state and nation.
MU students represent every Missouri county, all 50 states and 120 countries. For more than a decade, the university has welcomed record enrollments. In fact, the fall 2015 student body includes Mizzou’s largest number of high-achieving students who scored a 30 or higher on the ACT, the state’s biggest international student enrollment and a record number of students from minority groups.
Based on quality of teaching, research and scholarship, MU is one of only 60 public and private U.S. universities invited to membership in the prestigious Association of American Universities. AAU membership helps Mizzou attract external funding and recruit top faculty and students.
The state’s largest and most comprehensive university, Mizzou has more than 300 degree programs – including 89 online options – through 18 colleges and schools and is one of only six public universities nationwide that can claim a medical school, veterinary medicine college and a law school on the same campus.
The university’s nationally prominent faculty bring discoveries into the classroom, publish more than 1,600 books and scholarly articles each year and spend $237 million annually on scientific research; they account for about 70 percent of the research dollars flowing to the state’s public universities.
Mizzou students graduate, on average, in 4.2 years. More than 40 percent of the record 8,668 degrees awarded last year were in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and health fields. Among Missouri public universities, MU grants 27 percent of bachelor’s degrees, 23 percent of master’s degrees and 62 percent of doctoral degrees.
