What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$13,378 to $26,304 a year for in-state students, depending on income.
College Scorecard 2024 estimate · in-state rates
See the price at your income ↑Sticker price
Full cost before aid: $31,713 a year in-state. Average need-based aid package: $18,112.Aid and debt
$27,724
average debt at graduation
9,317
students got merit aid
about 38% of undergraduates
$8,827
average merit award
Not reported by this school: share receiving need-based grants.
Getting In
Key dates
Test scores
SAT, middle 50% by section: Reading 580–670 · Math 570–660. No combined range is published.
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 23–30 · 60% of the class submitted
34% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What they value
- Very important
- Class rank
- GPA
- SAT/ACT scores
- Considered
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- Personal essay
- Recommendations
- Special talent
- Not considered
- Extracurriculars
- Character
- First-gen status
- Legacy status
- Where you're from
- In-state residency
- Volunteer work
- Work experience
- Demonstrated interest
What this means for you
Mizzou doesn't consider demonstrated interest in admissions at all — visits and follow-up emails won't move the needle here.
Source: Common Data Set 2024–25, Section C7 (admissions factors)
Mizzou just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-Mizzou essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
42.3% of Mizzou classes have fewer than 20 students.
42.3%
under 20 students
40.1%
20 to 49
17.6%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. Mizzou CDS 2024–25, I-3.
17:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
33.5%
first-years from out of state
27%
live on campus
26%
of men in fraternities
32%
of women in sororities
Who attends
- White79%
- Hispanic6.2%
- Black4.8%
- Multiracial4.5%
- Asian2.7%
- Unknown / other1.3%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. Mizzou CDS 2024–25, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
55.7% of Mizzou students graduate in 4 years.
55.7%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2018
74.9%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2018
92.7%
return after first year
Finishing late means paying for extra semesters, so the 4-year rate is the one that shows the cost.
Students with Pell Grants
65.2% finish in 6 years, against 74.9% of all students.
A 9.7-point gap: Pell Grant students finish less often than students overall.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Columbia.
Columbia is a Midwestern college town of about 130,000, sitting almost exactly halfway between St.
MoreLess
Louis and Kansas City on I-70 — a location that splits Mizzou fans' pro-sports loyalties between both metros. The university's six-column Francis Quadrangle, all that survives of the original 1840s Academic Hall, anchors a compact downtown-adjacent campus that two smaller colleges (Stephens and Columbia College) also call home.
The City
College town
Columbia, MO
Best For
Notable alumni
Notable Alumni
Sam Walton
Earned a bachelor's degree in economics before going on to found Walmart, which grew into the world's largest retailer by revenue.
Class of 1940
Jim Lehrer
Studied journalism at the Missouri School of Journalism before becoming the longtime anchor of PBS NewsHour and moderating twelve U.S. presidential debates.
Class of 1956
Brad Pitt
Studied journalism at Mizzou and left one credit short of graduating to move to Los Angeles, going on to become one of Hollywood's most prominent actors and producers.
Max Scherzer
Pitched for the Missouri Tigers before a Major League Baseball career that has won three Cy Young Awards and eight All-Star selections.
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
Traditions
Traditions
Homecoming, Invented Here (1911)
Mizzou says it held the first Homecoming as we know it in 1911, when athletic director Chester Brewer invited alumni to 'come home' for the football game against Kansas — a parade and bonfire built around the game drew nearly 10,000 alumni back to campus. Baylor and Illinois both make earlier claims, but Missouri's version is the one most histories of the tradition start with.
M-I-Z / Z-O-U Chant
The official call-and-response cheer of the university — one half of a crowd yells 'M-I-Z' and the other answers 'Z-O-U' — used at every game, at orientation, and as an all-purpose greeting between Mizzou people anywhere.
Tiger Walk Through the Columns
Incoming students walk through the six surviving Ionic columns of the original 1840s Academic Hall at the start of their first year, and walk back through them at commencement — the same columns that stayed standing after the building burned down in 1892.
Weekend escapes from Columbia
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Columbia
St. Louis, MO
About 2 hoursThe nearer of Missouri's two big cities, with the Gateway Arch, Forest Park, and the Cardinals.
Kansas City, MO
About 2 hoursThe other Missouri metro, and the other half of the state's split sports loyalties — barbecue, the Nelson-Atkins Museum, and the Chiefs.
Lake of the Ozarks
About 1 hourMissouri's classic lake-house weekend, especially over Memorial Day and Labor Day.
Getting there and game days
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Columbia Regional Airport (COU)
About 20 minutes from campus
For international flights: St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL) — about 2 hours by road.
Pro sports nearby
- St. Louis Cardinals MLBAbout 2 hours away
- Kansas City Chiefs NFLAbout 2 hours away
- Kansas City Royals MLBAbout 2 hours away
Internships and jobs nearby
Career Proximity
Columbia sits almost exactly halfway between Kansas City and St. Louis, so an internship here means choosing a metro rather than defaulting to one — St. Louis's corporate and biotech base to the east, Kansas City's logistics and finance scene to the west, both about a two-hour drive.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Boeing
- Anheuser-Busch
- Cerner (Oracle Health)
- Edward Jones
- Garmin
St. Louis and Kansas City, both about 2 hours
Who thrives here
Who Thrives Here
Missouri admits 78.5% of applicants and doesn't require the SAT or ACT (just 10% of enrolled first-years submit an SAT score, 60% an ACT), so it's within reach for a wide range of academic profiles — enrolled first-years who do submit scores run 580-670 on SAT EBRW, 570-660 on SAT Math, and 23-30 on the ACT. What sets it apart academically is the Missouri School of Journalism, founded in 1908 as the world's first, and Mizzou's own claim to have invented the modern Homecoming format in 1911, when it invited alumni back for a parade and bonfire built around the football game against Kansas — a tradition still marked every fall by the M-I-Z / Z-O-U chant. Social life runs heavily through Greek houses — 26% of men and 32% of women join a fraternity or sorority — and only 27% of undergraduates live on campus, so most student life plays out off it. In-state tuition and fees run $15,548 a year (out-of-state, $37,820), and aid doesn't fully close the gap: the school meets 66% of demonstrated need on average, and students who borrow graduate owing about $27,724. The trade-off to know going in is pace to a degree — 55.7% finish in four years, though 74.9% finish within six.