Michigan State University

Michigan State University is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, next to the state capital. It opened in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan and became the prototype for the Morrill Act of 1862. The campus covers about 5,200 acres along the Red Cedar River. Seventeen degree-granting colleges range from agriculture and veterinary medicine to law, human medicine, and osteopathic medicine.

Graduate strengths include education, agriculture and natural resources, packaging, supply-chain management, plant science, and the College of Engineering. The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams is a major nuclear-science laboratory on campus. Professional schools of human medicine, osteopathic medicine, veterinary medicine, and law, together with the Eli Broad College of Business, draw large graduate cohorts. Lyman Briggs and James Madison College serve distinctive undergraduate missions but sit inside the same research university.

About 50,000 students enroll, including roughly 11,000 graduate and professional students. International students number in the thousands and come from more than 130 countries. Faculty number about 5,000 including clinical and extension titles. Alumni include basketball player Magic Johnson, actor James Caan, and U.S. senator Debbie Stabenow.

Degrees include the M.A., M.S., M.B.A., M.D., D.O., D.V.M., J.D., and Ph.D., with research students under a major professor on a semester calendar. Assistantships, fellowships, and medical residencies are the usual support paths. East Lansing is a large college town contiguous with Lansing, so graduate housing, clinics, and state-government work sit in one metro area.

In the Grad School Navigator directory, Michigan State University lists 153 graduate programs across 45 subjects: 80 master's programs and 69 doctoral programs, with the widest choice in agriculture, food & forestry, law and music. Michigan State University holds rank 91 in the GSN Overall University Ranking.