Rank 6 of 6 · Austin, Texas

UT Austin MSIS

Master of Science in Information Studies

The flexible, lower-tuition HCI menu. You have to aim it or it will not aim you.

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 6.

Best cost structure in the set, with real concentrations in HCI, UX, and human-centered AI. Last in this order because outcomes vary more by how you build the degree than by the name on it.

MSIS is a two-year, in-person, STEM-designated master’s at the School of Information. The degree is 36 semester hours: a core, 30 hours of electives, and a capstone. Full-time is nine hours. Fall admission only.

Study areas include Human-Computer Interaction, User Experience Research and Design, and Human-Centered AI and Data Science, alongside health, security, archives, and librarianship. The flexibility is the product. It is also the risk.

Austin is a real tech market (headquarters, satellite offices, and startups) without the single-school mythology of CMU or the Bay Area density of Berkeley.

Where it is strong

Lowest published tuition in this set for nonresidents
Automatic scholarship consideration, $1,000–$4,000 a year
STEM OPT eligibility, stated in the admissions FAQ
Room to mix HCI, UX, and human-centered AI without a second application

What you give up

The brand will not carry a vague portfolio. Electives can become a tour.
No required internship with the force of Georgia Tech’s summer.
Austin sponsors unevenly. Local companies and big-tech satellites behave differently.
Two years of opportunity cost against a one-year program, even when tuition is lower.

Curriculum and learning model

What the year actually is.

One core, a wide elective field, and a capstone. HCI, UX research and design, and human-centered AI are listed study areas, not sealed tracks with separate admissions. You can also leave through archives or policy. The schedule rewards a written plan in month one.

Nine hours a semester is full-time. That is a lighter course load than CMU’s unit system. Use the spare hours to make portfolio work, not to drift.
Human-centered AI is on the menu. Take it if that is your story. Do not assume it is the default section.
Cross-registering is part of the school’s pitch. A scattered transcript is not the same thing as interdisciplinary.

Capstone and internship

The piece that becomes the portfolio.

A required capstone closes the 36 hours. Scope depends on the advisor and the study area. It can be a serious final project or a last box checked. You are the one who decides which, starting a semester early.

Pair the capstone with the concentration you want to be hired into. A preservation capstone will not read as product design.
There is no famous sponsor roster. Recruit your own internship summers.
Austin companies will look at the work, not the course number.

Cohort and intensity

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

Class size: Not printed as a single entering class size on the pages reviewed. The school is larger and more varied than MHCI or MHCI+D.
Workload: Editorial band: 30–40 hours at nine credit hours, higher in capstone semester. The risk is under-intensity, not burnout.
How people work: Self-directed. Collaboration exists inside studios and projects you opt into. Nobody will assign you a four-person product team for seven months.

Build a small crew in HCI or UX on purpose.
Career outcomes track the concentration. ‘MSIS’ is a container.

Cost of attendance

About $90,000–$110,000 over two years at Fall 2026–Spring 2027 rates, if you take four nine-hour semesters and live within the university’s own living budget.

Cost lines for UT Austin MSIS
Line	Amount	Note
Nonresident tuition, Information, 9 hoursofficial	$9,893 per long semester	UT Austin tuition tables, Graduate, Fall 2026–Spring 2027, Information college, nonresident, 9-hour column.
Four long semestersestimate	$39,572 tuition	4 × $9,893 if the rate holds and you do not add summer enrollment. 36 hours at nine per semester is the normal full-time plan.
Graduate living budget, one academic yearofficial	Housing and food $17,052–$17,423, plus transport $1,840, books $776, personal $4,900	Texas One Stop, 2026–27 estimated cost of attendance, full-time graduate, nonresident, based on 9-hour enrollment. Academic-year figure. Summers in Austin cost extra if you stay.

About $90,000–$110,000 over two years. Tuition is the clear low outlier. Living in Austin is not cheap, and two academic-year budgets plus two summers can erase part of the tuition advantage versus a one-year program. Still the easiest invoice to survive without aid.

Funding and scholarships

What you can actually plan on.

Every new MSIS applicant is considered automatically for iSchool scholarships of $1,000–$4,000 a year. Academic Assistant roles exist. Teaching assistantships prioritize PhD students. Graduate research assistantships for master’s students happen and are not the plan.

No extra scholarship form for the automatic awards.
The amounts are modest next to even this tuition. They are still more structural aid than CMU or UW offer.
External scholarships are worth the afternoon. The base cost is low enough that a small award matters.

Application readiness

Deadline, materials, and the GRE question.

Deadline

5 January, 11:59 p.m. Central. All three recommendations, transcripts, statement, resume, and English scores if required must be in. Decisions typically March or April. Fall only.

GRE

Optional.

Statement of purpose. Plan 1–2 pages (about 500–1,000 words) unless the form sets another limit.
Resume and transcripts. Required. Bachelor’s degree.
Three recommendations. Must arrive by the deadline, not ‘in progress.’
English test. TOEFL or IELTS when the graduate school requires it.
Portfolio. Not stated as a universal requirement. UX and HCI applicants should still link work.
Fee. The iSchool does not waive the application fee itself. The graduate school has its own waiver process.

Cross-program differences are collected in the application guide.

Outcomes and the job market

What “placed” means here.

Solid and wider than the HCI-branded programs. Graduates go into UX, product, data, health informatics, libraries, and policy, because the degree allows all of those. Austin’s market helps the tech-facing half. The school does not publish an MSI-style employment percentage we could cite here. Specialization predicts the offer more than the diploma does.

Search time. Planning band: 2–6 months, highly dependent on whether you interned and whether the portfolio matches the job.

Roles to picture

UX researcher
Product designer
HCI specialist
Human-centered AI or data roles
Also non-design information roles

Employer pattern

Austin tech headquarters and satellite offices
Texas and national product teams
Public-interest, health, and university employers

A human-centered AI or UX transcript plus an internship is a different outcome from a general MSIS transcript.
Big-tech satellites in Austin sponsor some roles and not others. Ask alumni in the specific team, not ‘Austin’ in the abstract.
Cost advantage is only ROI if the job is the job you wanted. A cheap degree into the wrong role is still two years.

Acceptance rate

Not published. The school says admission is competitive and does not print a rate. Unofficial applicant chatter about yield is not used here. Relative to this set, the door is the widest after Michigan’s, with more variance in admitted preparation.

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

7 / 10

Austin is hot, social, and increasingly expensive, with a real food and music life and mediocre transit. The university’s housing-and-food budget near $17k for the academic year is tight but more plausible than Berkeley. Heat and sprawl keep it out of Ann Arbor’s range.

Job security

6 / 10

Good market, weaker program brand for competitive PD/UXR/PM screens outside Texas. Outcomes fan out with the curriculum. You can build a strong placement story. The school will not hand you one.

Future proof

7 / 10

Human-centered AI, HCI, and UX are all listed, next to data and security. That is enough raw material. A 30-hour elective block can also avoid the hard technical courses. Future-proofing is a scheduling choice.

Selectivity

5 / 10

Competitive, unpublished, and structurally more open than the studio cohorts or MIMS. The right score for ‘you can get in and still waste it.’ Not a quality ranking of the faculty.

ROI

8 / 10

Four semesters at $9,893 is the tuition outlier, scholarships are small but automatic, and Austin is a real market. The score stops at 8 because outcome variance is high and two years of living plus lost salary are not free.

Visa chances

45–60%

The admissions FAQ states the MSIS is a DHS STEM program eligible for STEM OPT. Austin has sponsor-capable offices and many employers who will not file. A UX-only search without an internship lands at the bottom of the range. A human-centered technical portfolio aimed at larger product teams lands at the top. The degree does not move you there by itself.

Essay strategy

Statement of Purpose · About 1–2 pages. Confirm

Write about information environments and interactive systems, not a generic design-school dream. The degree lives in an iSchool. Show you understand that.
Name the study area (HCI, UX research and design, or human-centered AI) in the first half. Flexibility without a target looks like you want a two-year visa more than a curriculum.
One project is enough if it shows a user, a system, and a decision. A second project should change the picture, not repeat it.
Austin can be a sentence about the kind of industry context you want. Do not spend the page on breakfast tacos or ‘the live music capital.’
If you are changing careers, say what you will stop doing as well as what you will start. The elective menu punishes people who arrive without a cut line.

Related comparisons

The pairs worth opening.

UT Austin MSIS vs Georgia Tech MS-HCI
The cost-versus-structure choice. Austin is cheaper and looser. Georgia Tech costs more and makes you intern.
Open this pair
UT Austin MSIS vs UW MHCI+D
Two years of flexibility and lower tuition, versus one intense studio year in Seattle.
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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