History Degrees in Missouri

Lewis and Clark set out from the St. Louis area in May 1804 and came back in September 1806, which is where the Gateway to the West name comes from. Half a century later Dred Scott began his suit for freedom at the Old Courthouse in the same city, and the 1857 decision that followed struck down much of the Missouri Compromise. The state sits at the hinge of both stories. Its universities reflect that position: spread wide across the state, and concentrated at the top.

Missouri has 34 colleges and universities offering history degrees, with 67 programs among them: 49 bachelor’s degrees, 14 master’s degrees, and 4 doctorates.

Three schools carry history from bachelor’s through doctorate: Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Missouri at Columbia, and Saint Louis University.

Top History Schools in Missouri

As with every state we cover, we scored all 34 Missouri schools on four factors: history degree offerings and program variety (40%), student outcomes (25%), reputation (20%), and affordability (15%). Washington University and Missouri State carry the deepest catalogs, at seven and six programs. Missouri State and Southeast Missouri State post the strongest affordability scores among the schools that made the list, at $9,502 and $9,903 in state. Here are Missouri’s best history degrees.

Most Affordable History Degrees in Missouri

Annual in-state tuition and fees. Six of these eight offer history at the master’s level as well as the bachelor’s, which is unusual at this price.

History Education in Missouri

Missouri runs against the pattern in most states: the private colleges carry more of the field than the public ones. Twenty-three private nonprofit institutions offer 37 history programs, while 11 public schools offer 28. Both of the state’s private research universities, Washington University and Saint Louis University, hold history doctorates, and only one public university does.

Missouri is also the state where the Bachelor of Science shows up most often in history. Nine bachelor’s programs carry a B.S. title against 17 titled B.A., a far higher share than we find elsewhere, and Missouri State alone offers three of its history degrees as either a B.A. or a B.S. The distinction usually comes down to a foreign language requirement on the arts side against additional quantitative or education coursework on the science side.

Transfer is the smoothest part of the system. CORE 42 is a block of at least 42 credit hours that transfers as equivalent credit to every public college and university in Missouri, adopted statewide for the 2018 to 2019 academic year. More than 2,000 courses carry a Missouri Transfer number, known as MOTR, which guarantees one-to-one transfer between public institutions. Complete the block anywhere in the state system and it satisfies the general education requirement at the receiving school, though education, engineering, and nursing degrees have their own requirements on top.

Online options are more balanced here than in most states, with 12 programs split evenly between six bachelor’s and six master’s. Our guide to online history degrees covers how those programs work.

Becoming a History Teacher in Missouri

Missouri licenses teachers through the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and the traditional route runs through a bachelor’s degree that includes a state-approved educator preparation component. The state lists 43 accredited educator preparation programs.

Two assessments sit at the end. Since July 1, 2024, Missouri has used the ETS Praxis subject test for the licensure area you are seeking. Separately, you complete the Missouri Pre-Service Teacher Assessment, known as MoPTA, during your student teaching placement rather than as a sit-down exam.

If teaching is the goal from the start, note that Missouri State offers a B.S. in Education with a history emphasis, and Missouri S&T runs a secondary education track inside its history and political science degree. Both build the preparation component into the degree itself.

Confirm current requirements with the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education before choosing a program.

History Careers in Missouri

Employment and wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, 2025.

Missouri inverts the usual pattern. In most states the specialist history roles fall furthest behind national pay while teaching stays close. Here it is the reverse: secondary school teachers earn 18% below the national median, the widest gap on the list, while curators sit 5% below, postsecondary history teachers 4% below, and archivists 7% below. If you are heading into museum or archive work, Missouri pays close to the national rate. If you are heading into a classroom, it does not.

The state also supports more archival work than its size suggests, with 150 archivists and 260 curators, both well ahead of comparable states. That reflects a genuine concentration of collections in St. Louis, Kansas City, and Columbia.

History Resources in Missouri

• State Historical Society of Missouri, founded in 1898 and made a trustee of the state in 1901. It is a full research facility based in Columbia and runs outreach programs including a speakers’ bureau and a history performance series.
• Missouri Conference on History, now in its sixty-eighth year, hosted by the Missouri State Archives and sponsored by the historical society. It brings together history teachers and professional historians to present research and discuss teaching, and it is the state’s main annual gathering for the field.
• Missouri State Archives, the official repository for state records, which also holds the digitized case files from the Dred Scott litigation.

Frequently Asked Questions