About Mountain State University

Mountain State University

Mountain State University was founded as Beckley College in 1933. Located in the heart of southern West Virginia, the private, not-for-profit institution began as a junior college in response to the community’s desire to provide accessible higher education to its youth.

During its first half century, the college experienced slow but steady increases in enrollment, staff, facilities, and programs. In 1990, five presidents and 57 years later, President Charles H. Polk took on the challenges of leading Beckley College into a new era.

MSU Campus

The past two decades have been a time of tremendous change, including the transition from a two-year to a four-year college, then to a master's level institution and, in 2009, to the doctoral level. The campus has grown and degree programs have expanded to include high-demand professional and technology fields as well as the humanities, arts, and sciences. The name Mountain State University was adopted in August 2001.

In addition to traditional classroom-based studies, MSU now serves thousands of students across the country and around the world with a system of branch campuses as well as distance learning, nontraditional credit options, and collaboration with a variety of industry and education partners. Today, as throughout its history, Mountain State University remains committed to its founding vision of fostering opportunities for personal and professional success.

ATP Seminole

In 2010, Mountain State University expanded its degree program offerings to include a highly-relevant degree for professional pilots with the best flight training available. MSU collaborated with ATP to build an academic curriculum that closely follows the flight training syllabus in ATP's Airline Career Pilot Program. MSU's respected online course delivery combined with ATP's reputation, airline relationships, network of training centers, large multi-engine aircraft fleet, and regional jet training capability, give our graduates the competitive edge.

By selecting ATP as its flight training provider, Mountain State University has become the largest aviation university for airline pilot training.

MSU Degree Levels Offered

  • Doctoral
  • Master's
  • Bachelor's
  • Associate

Enrollment

  • Total annual enrollment: 8,225 (Unduplicated head count, 2010-2011 academic year)

Undergraduate Student Profile

  • Full-time: 62% / Part-time: 38%
  • Out-of-state: 44%
  • Average age (full-time and part-time): 32

Undergraduate Class Size

  • Fewer than 20 students: 86%
  • Fewer than 30 students: 96%

Academic Calendar for Traditional Programs

  • Fall semester: Late August through mid-December
  • Spring semester: Mid-January through mid-May
  • Summer I and II: Early June through early August

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