Ranked, compared, and filtered by real data: costs, outcomes, and admissions
Washington University in St. Louis operates at a level that surprises people who assume elite research universities are all on the coasts. Its medical school, law school, and engineering programs are consistently ranked among the best in the country and compete for students alongside schools that are far better known outside the region.
The University of Missouri's journalism school in Columbia is widely considered the oldest and one of the most influential journalism programs in the world.
By Ownership
By Type
See how Missouri's colleges compare to the national average on the four measures most students and families weigh when deciding where to go: cost, acceptance rates, graduate earnings, and graduation rates.
The colleges in Missouri that rank highest by UCD Score, and those that deliver above-national graduate earnings at a below-average net price, two of the strongest signals when choosing a school.
Not every student is looking for the same thing. These six panels rank Missouri's colleges by the data that matters most for each path.
Ranked by annual graduates
Ranked by annual graduates
Ranked by annual graduates
Ranked by net price
Ranked by enrollment
Ranked by grad earnings
Which colleges give you the most for what you spend? These eight schools rank highest in Missouri by the ratio of 10-year graduate earnings to annual net price.
| # | College | Net Price / yr | Earnings (10yr) | Ratio | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | St Charles Community College Cottleville | $5,837 | $42,422 | 7.3× | Excellent |
| 2 | College of the Ozarks Point Lookout | $6,100 | $41,592 | 6.8× | Excellent |
| 3 | Jefferson College Hillsboro | $7,378 | $40,782 | 5.5× | Excellent |
| 4 | Moberly Area Community College Moberly | $6,810 | $37,537 | 5.5× | Excellent |
| 5 | Ozarks Technical Community College Springfield | $6,936 | $36,455 | 5.3× | Excellent |
| 6 | Missouri University of Science and Technology Rolla | $16,298 | $82,957 | 5.1× | Excellent |
| 7 | Metropolitan Community College-Kansas City Kansas City | $8,398 | $40,796 | 4.9× | Excellent |
| 8 | University of Missouri-Kansas City Kansas City | $13,310 | $59,637 | 4.5× | Excellent |
ROI Ratio = median earnings 10 years after enrollment ÷ annual net price. Higher is better.
The six fields of study with the most annual graduates across all colleges in Missouri, based on IPEDS completion data.
The specific degree programs producing the most graduates across Missouri's colleges. A more granular view than the Popular Majors above, useful when you already know roughly what you want to study and want to see where the volume is.
Careers with a strong employment footprint in Missouri. What graduates from local colleges actually go on to do. State-level employment is shown where the BLS publishes it; national wage + growth shown alongside.
The cities in Missouri with the most colleges, ranked by number of institutions.
Utah crowds 14,137 students into each of its colleges, four times the national norm. These are the states where college options are scarcest per student.
There are 170 colleges that operate a medical school, and they cluster hard. Texas leads with 14, three states hold a fifth of them, and four states have none.
Northeast college graduates earn about $12,700 more a decade out than Southern ones, but they also pay thousands more to get there. The regional split, by the numbers.
Browse our full directory: every college, major, program, and career we track, all built from verified government data.
Scout uses AI and can make mistakes. Verify important numbers on the page.
