Rank 5 of 6 · Ann Arbor, Michigan

UMich MSI

Master of Science in Information

A large, well-run information degree with real UX and a new PM pathway. The outcome PDF is not a UX outcome PDF.

Official program site Start a comparison

Visa prior is a planning range for OPT and for whether employers in that market sponsor. It is not an admission rate. All-in sketch is tuition plus a living estimate, not an invoice.

Overview

Why it sits at 5.

Right school if you want research methods, a flexible UX path, or the new product-management pathway, and you will read the employment report carefully. The sticker is Berkeley-shaped without the Bay Area median.

The MSI at the School of Information is a two-year professional degree on North Campus in Ann Arbor. Pathways include User Experience Research and Design, User-Centered Application Development, Product Management (new for students entering fall 2026), Information and Data Analytics, and a libraries and archives path.

No GRE. Recommended undergraduate GPA is 3.0. The school is large: 358 MSI graduates in 2025. You can disappear into the size, or you can use it.

The career office publishes a real report. Use it. Then remember it covers every pathway, including librarianship.

Where it is strong

UX research methods and a dedicated UX pathway
A product-management pathway with coursework built around cross-functional teams
Published outcomes: 88% employed, $91k average salary, 3–4 month average search, class of 2025
Fellowships and some assistantships exist, unlike CMU or UW

What you give up

Nonresident full-time tuition on the 2026–27 School of Information table is $32,139 per term.
45% of reporting 2025 MSI graduates were working in Michigan. The network is national and the gravity is Midwestern.
Two years at this tuition is one of the most expensive paths in the set.
‘MSI’ on a resume needs a pathway sentence. The letters alone do not say product design.

Curriculum and learning model

What the year actually is.

Pathway-based inside a shared information core. UX Research and Design is methods, prototyping, and stakeholder communication. User-Centered Application Development adds full-stack and agile delivery. Product Management, launched for fall 2026, combines strategy, user research, and human-centered design, including a course where students rotate through UX, PM, and engineering roles.

You must pick a pathway with intent. The degree’s flexibility is also how people graduate undifferentiated.
Research training is a genuine advantage if your portfolio is currently ‘screens only.’
AI shows up as a skill employers asked for in the 2026 outcomes coverage (hybrid roles such as UX strategist and AI UX designer), not as a guarantee every section teaches it.
Confirm STEM OPT against the CIP code on the I-20. Do not assume a pathway name prints STEM on the visa document.

Capstone and internship

The piece that becomes the portfolio.

Practical engagement, internships, and pathway projects replace a single famous capstone brand. The career report lists internships among the experiences tied to job outcomes. There is no CMU-style seven-month sponsor monograph that carries the program’s reputation.

Plan a summer internship between years. The 3–4 month postgraduate search assumes people did not start from zero.
A research thesis-style project helps UXR applicants more than a visual reel.
PM pathway students should leave with a collaboration story from the cross-functional studio, because that is the new curriculum’s point.

Cohort and intensity

Who is in the room, and how hard the week is.

Class size: Large. 358 MSI graduates in 2025. Your pathway cohort is the relevant unit, and it is smaller.
Workload: Editorial band: 35–45 hours, with spikes in methods courses and team studios. Less crushing than CMU summer. Easier to under-work and graduate with a generic portfolio.
How people work: Big-school collaboration. You build a crew inside UX or PM. The school will not force one.

Ann Arbor is a campus town. The intensity is academic, not a commuter-city hustle.
Career services are staffed and documented. Use them early. The report exists because people report.

Cost of attendance

About $170,000–$185,000 over two years at the 2026–27 nonresident full-time rate, before aid.

Cost lines for UMich MSI
Line	Amount	Note
Nonresident tuition, 9+ creditsofficial	$32,139 per full term	U-M Registrar, School of Information graduate full-term table, 2026–27, ‘School of Information and Public Health’ 9+ nonresident line. A neighboring Rackham line on the same page shows $31,555. Confirm which line your bill uses.
Four full termsestimate	About $128,600	4 × $32,139 if the rate never moves. It will move in year two. Summers extra if you enroll.
Living in Ann Arbor, per yearestimate	$20,000–$26,000	Planning band for shared housing, food, and local costs. Not an Office of Financial Aid printout. Cheaper than Berkeley and Seattle. Winters are part of the budget only if you buy the coat.

$170,000–$185,000 before aid. Aid is the variable that can make this rational. Without it, you are paying Berkeley-like tuition to be in Ann Arbor, with a $91k average salary that mixes every MSI pathway. Price a fellowship before you fall in love with the syllabus.

Funding and scholarships

What you can actually plan on.

Limited fellowships, matching of some external awards, and assistantships exist. They are not automatic and not large enough, on average, to assume. New students should read the current funding page rather than a blog from a funded PhD.

Master’s assistantships are competitive next to doctoral students.
External fellowships you win yourself are the cleanest version of aid.
A budget with zero aid is the responsible budget.

Application readiness

Deadline, materials, and the GRE question.

Deadline

Confirm on si.umich.edu for your cycle. An April 2026 school news post told fall 2026 applicants to apply by 15 May. Do not reuse that date blindly for the next fall. No GRE.

GRE

Not required.

Statement of purpose. Typically 1–2 pages. Confirm the live limit.
Personal statement. Often a separate ~500-word essay. Confirm. Use it for path, not for a second career plan.
Pathway intent. Name UX Research and Design, User-Centered Application Development, or Product Management.
Portfolio. Plan on one for UX even if the general form leads with essays. Research and shipped work both count.
Recommendations and transcripts. Standard Rackham process. 3.0 GPA is recommended, not a published cliff.
English test. Required for many international applicants. Check Rackham’s current cutoffs.

Cross-program differences are collected in the application guide.

Outcomes and the job market

What “placed” means here.

Class of 2025, reported in the 2026 MSI employment report: 88% employment among respondents, $91,000 average salary ($95,000 private sector, $103,000 in technology, $64,000 public or nonprofit), 90% of respondents highly satisfied. 358 graduates, 52% response. Average search was three to four months. 45% stayed in Michigan, 11% California, 11% New York. Top industries: technology 31%, universities 14%, consulting 7%, health 7%.

Search time. 3–4 months average for MSI graduates in the class of 2025 report. International UX searches are not broken out.

Roles to picture

UX researcher
Product designer
UX strategist
Product manager
Also librarians, analysts, and consultants. The report is the whole school

Employer pattern

Microsoft, Adobe, Amazon, IBM
Accenture, Deloitte, JPMorgan Chase, Epic
University of Michigan and Michigan Medicine
Stellantis

Do not quote 88% as a UX placement rate. Bold rows in the job list mark some international outcomes, which is more useful than the headline.
Midwest gravity is a feature if you like the market and a bug if you only want the coast.
Employers in the report are asking for UX plus AI, data, or product thinking. A methods-only story is already slightly behind the 2025 class.

Acceptance rate

Not published. No rate on the pages reviewed. Hundreds of MSI graduates a year means the school-level door is the widest in this set. Strong UX and PM applicants still compete inside it. A higher headcount is not a lower standard for the work.

Indices

Five scores and a visa range.

Relative to these six programs only. Higher selectivity means a harder door, not a better school. How the scores are built.

Livability

8 / 10

Ann Arbor is the most manageable daily life in this set: campus scale, safer than the big cities, real food, brutal winters, and rents that do not require a fellowship to survive. You will want a coat and a reason to be in Michigan.

Job security

7 / 10

The published MSI numbers are good and they are not UX numbers. Technology salaries in the report ($103k) are the relevant slice. Brand is strong in the Midwest and respected nationally, less automatic on a Bay Area PM screen than Berkeley or CMU.

Future proof

8 / 10

UX, a build pathway, data, and a new PM studio that includes human–AI collaboration are a serious mix. You can also assemble a degree that ignores all of that. The curriculum is only future-proof if you choose the hard version.

Selectivity

6 / 10

Large program, no GRE, 3.0 recommended. Easier to enter than CMU, Berkeley, or UW. The UX faculty and the portfolio still reject generic applications. Score is about the door, not the quality of the best alumni.

ROI

6 / 10

Four terms near $32k, two years of living, outcomes that are solid and geographically spread. Aid can lift this score. Sticker price, for an international student with no fellowship, sits next to Berkeley without the $120k median.

Visa chances

45–60%

Confirm STEM on the I-20. The employer list includes sponsors (Microsoft, Amazon, Adobe) and many organizations that hire locally without a visa practice. Forty-five percent of graduates staying in Michigan is a clue: the modal job is not a Bay Area sponsorship story. International outcomes exist in the report. They are not the majority plot.

Essay strategy

Statement of Purpose + Personal Statement · About 1–2 pages and about 500 words. Confirm

Split the narrative. The SOP carries the professional goal: design engineering, UXR, or PM, and the pathway that matches. The personal statement carries how you got here. Overlap reads as padding.
Name courses or the collaboration studio only if you can say what you will do there. ‘UMSI is interdisciplinary’ is not a reason.
If you want UX research, show a method: who you talked to, what you changed, what you would redo. Faculty can smell a portfolio described as research.
If you want the PM pathway, write about a tradeoff you managed across design, business, and build. The pathway is new. Curiosity about the role is not enough; judgment is.
Ann Arbor and ‘public university values’ can be one sentence. The rest is the work.

Related comparisons

The pairs worth opening.

UMich MSI vs UC Berkeley MIMS
PM versus PM. Compare the $120k Bay Area median with Michigan’s published, broader MSI salaries and a lower city cost.
Open this pair
UMich MSI vs Georgia Tech MS-HCI
Research and pathway flexibility versus a required internship and a shorter calendar.
Open this pair

Sources · updated 11 October 2026

Where the numbers came from.

Official figures are marked on the cost table. Estimates are planning bands, labeled as such. Open the source before you cite a number in your own notes.

What these words mean

Decision framework: The rules for reading the order on the homepage. It is a weighting for one applicant, not a quality ladder of the six schools.
Indices: Five scores from 1 to 10: livability, job security, future proof, selectivity, and ROI. Each score compares these six programs only.
Visa prior: A planning range for OPT and for whether employers in that market sponsor. It is not an admission rate and not a promise.
Future proof: How directly the curriculum treats human-AI work, systems, and the mix of research, craft, and technical skill after 2026.
Job security: How usable the path is into product design, UX research, or product management: brand, network, internship, and where alumni land.
All-in sketch: Tuition plus a living estimate for the length of the degree. Not an invoice. Fees, flights, and aid sit outside it unless a line says so.
Holds: Where the program is strong for this decision.
Costs you: What you give up, or the risk you take, if you pick it.
Full freight: You pay the published tuition. Do not assume a scholarship or an assistantship will cut it.

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