The University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) is a public urban research university founded in 1963 and a member of the four-campus University of Missouri System. Set on a 470-acre campus in Normandy — a north-St.-Louis suburb directly on the MetroLink light-rail line, roughly 20 minutes from downtown St. Louis and Lambert International Airport — UMSL enrolls about 15,000 students across eight colleges and schools. Designed from day one as a commuter-friendly institution serving the greater St. Louis region, UMSL has grown into the largest public research university in the eastern half of Missouri and the region's most affordable four-year public option, earning consistent national recognition from U.S. News as a top performer on social mobility. Academically, UMSL is best known for its College of Optometry — the only school of optometry in Missouri and one of only 23 accredited OD programs in the United States — and for an AACSB-accredited College of Business Administration that leans into St. Louis's strengths in financial services, logistics, and health systems. The College of Nursing (800+ students), the College of Education, the Pierre Laclede Honors College, and the joint UMSL-Washington University Undergraduate Engineering Program round out the academic portfolio; the UMSL-WashU engineering joint program is a distinctive pathway that lets UMSL-admitted students earn an engineering degree from WashU at a fraction of the private-school cost. UMSL's research centers in cybersecurity, international business, trauma studies, and disability policy attract federal funding, and the university operates evening, weekend, and online programs that flex around working-student schedules. For international students, UMSL is a pragmatic choice: non-resident tuition is well below most flagship publics, the UMSL Global office runs merit-based International Merit Scholarships that apply automatically (no separate application), and St. Louis itself — with its Bosnian, Indian, Chinese, and Vietnamese immigrant communities, a strong food and music scene, and major employers like Boeing, Edward Jones, Centene, Express Scripts, and Washington University Medical Center — offers genuine career-networking opportunities. UMSL is SEVP-certified, offers CPT and OPT for F-1 students, and its location inside a large metropolitan labor market (rather than an isolated college town) makes internships and part-time on-campus work easier to find than at many similarly-ranked schools.
Visa, OPT, H-1B alumni outcomes, and acceptance rates by country — sourced from FOIA, USCIS H-1B Hub, and DHS SEVIS.
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Official SourceThe deep admissions playbook beyond the headline acceptance rate — round-by-round breakdowns, nationality data, requirements, and contact paths.
Domestic
—
/yr
Out-of-State / Intl
$37,620
/yr
Beyond the sticker price — every named scholarship, the financial aid policy, need-aware notes, and a personalized net-cost estimate.
How life on campus actually feels — clubs, sports, traditions, housing realities, and how the school integrates with its city.
Where alumni go after graduation — top industries, grad-school continuation, and the qualitative outcomes story.
Sticker price (annual, out-of-state): $35,112
Net-cost estimate is US-resident-only — international applicants are typically excluded from need-based aid at most schools and should treat the sticker price as the planning baseline.
