The MSU Teacher Preparation Program’s goal is to prepare justice-oriented professionals who are ready to teach on Day 1.
We test these ambitions against the data we collect. We update these sources regularly and pursue new ways to understand how well our program is working. We encourage you to browse the information we have compiled below in our effort to put ongoing improvement at the heart of our work.
List of Accredited Program Areas at MSU
In November 2015, Public Act 173 was signed into law in Michigan. This legislation governs educator evaluations for teachers by requiring school boards to implement a rigorous, transparent, and fair performance evaluation system that does all of the following:
How have MSU-prepared teachers done on these evaluations? Across a five-year span from 2020-2025, over 1,300 evaluations were done of early-career Spartan educators across the state. This table shows the results: more than 96% of our teachers are rated “highly effective” or “effective” during their first years in the classroom. What’s more, Spartan educators continue to improve their craft each year they are in the classroom: the percentage of “high effective” educators triples over the first three years in the classroom.
The Michigan Department of Education developed an Administrator Survey during the 2020-2021 academic year. This survey is distributed to the lead administrator of Michigan school buildings where new teachers are working and asks them about the performance of their new hire. These results show just how well MSU-prepared teachers are doing.
As this table demonstrates, MSU-prepared teachers outperform state-wide averages in every category. Particular strengths of MSU-prepared teachers include the ability to “implement strategies which maximize student engagement to support positive student behavior” and the ability to “implement literacy and reading strategies appropriate to their content area(s) and grade level(s).” MSU teachers were also said to be excellent at “meeting the needs of each individual student's learning abilities and needs!” Comments from principals can be read at the end of the table but include such statements as “she is one of the best first-year teachers I have ever had” and “she is a fabulous first year teacher.”
In short, MSU teachers are deeply thoughtful and reflective practitioners who seek to meet the needs of all students.
The governance and structure of our teacher preparation program is evolving as we seek to meet the needs of our many stakeholders. During the summer of 2023, we hired a Director of Educator Preparation and Accreditation, Dr. Lara Dixon. Dr. Dixon will ensure that our programs at both the initial and advanced level are well coordinated and use data to drive improvement.
At the heart of our EPP governance model is our Educator Preparation Program Advisory Group. This group brings together MSU leadership, alumni, PK-12 superintendents and state business leaders. We are working to create a robust group that will help us create “mutually beneficial PK-12 school and community arrangements for clinical preparation and share responsibility for continuous improvement of candidate preparation.” During the 2025-2026, this group met on January 12, 2026.
As this table shows, nearly all of our program graduates feel like they are ready to succeed in the classroom. One year later, 97% of those graduates still felt like they were well prepared to succeed in the profession. In fact, Spartan educators one year into their career show remarkably more satisfaction with their teacher preparation than educators who attended other Michigan institutions.
One thing that sets Spartan educators apart is our work in supporting all learners. This is born out in the data, as at one year out, Spartan educators felt more prepared in “meeting student needs” and “instructional strategies and assessments” than did educators prepared at other institutions (outscoring the state-wide average by more than 10% in each category).
Another thing that really stands out about this data: over 75% of Spartan educators felt satisfied with the career supports they received while at MSU. This compares to a state-wide average of 60%. This shows the commitment of advisors, placement coordinators, instructors, and program leadership to student success.
Candidates in teacher preparation programs are required by Michigan state law to pass the Michigan Test for Teacher Certification (MTTC) in the area(s) relevant to their certification. This ensures that all teachers know the content that they will be asked to teach PK-12 students.
As this table shows, MSU-prepared teacher candidates consistently outperform their peers at other Michigan institutions on these exams (on average, with cumulative pass rates nearly 6% higher). We particularly excel across our secondary programs (English, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies) and in the fine arts (Music and Visual Arts). In many of these areas, our MTTC scores outpace the statewide average by more than 10 percentage points!
In order to define exit standards for our program, we developed the Assessment of Progress (AoP). Teacher candidates must demonstrate mastery of the eighteen core teaching practices as defined by the state of Michigan.
The elements are grouped in the tool into four sections: Professional Responsibility, The Learner and Learning, Content Knowledge, and Instructional Practice (subdivided into Assessments, Planning, and Instruction). The available performance levels are Target Proficiency (3), Intermediate Proficiency (2), and Emerging Proficiency (1).
In all program areas, the AoP rubric is completed independently by the intern, their mentor teacher, and their field instructor, followed by an AoP conference at which the three members of the triad share their individual responses and determine a consensus score, which is submitted by the field instructor on behalf of the triad. This assessment process is completed at multiple points across the internship year.
This table shows the mean exit score for each AoP item by licensure area. It also shows overall average AoP score by race, gender, and first-generation college student status.
Intercultural competence is the capability to shift cultural perspective and appropriately adapt behavior to cultural differences and commonalities. We use the Intercultural Developmental Inventory (IDI) to understand the intercultural competence of our teacher candidates and how it has grown over their time in our program.
This table shows how our most recent cohort scored at program entry (in TE 101) and at program exit (as student teaching interns). Candidates in most licensure areas demonstrated increased intercultural competence over time. We are interested in continuing to study these results in order to understand how we can support teacher candidates who might struggle in this area.
As this table shows, the job market for teachers continues to be very hot. A decade ago, most of our program graduates needed to leave Michigan in order to find jobs. These days, our graduates have many more options–and a lot more of them are choosing to stay in Michigan (about 70%, on average). What’s more, the average starting salary for a MSU-prepared educator is up over 10% across the past decade and continues to climb year-by-year.
Where are MSU-prepared teachers working? With our program’s commitment to social justice, we hope that many Spartan educators will go where the need is the greatest. In 2021, we discovered that around 28% of our completers ended up in economically-disadvantaged (ED) school districts. In 2024, that number had risen to 36.9%. And the districts hiring the largest number of our completers? Lansing, Chicago, and Detroit!
Like other teacher preparation programs across the country, the number of candidates who completed our programs drastically decreased over the past two decades. To address this issue, we announced in December of 2022 that we would be transitioning our teacher preparation program to a four-year pathway. This transition is now complete. It ensures that our undergraduates leave with both a bachelor’s degree and a teaching certificate at the same time!
The early results our promising. In the spring of 2025, we graduated a double cohort of teachers—those finishing up the old five-year pathway and an inaugural cohort of teachers on the four-year pathway. These results suggest that the new four-year pathway will double the number of teachers we produce each year!
That said, we need to do a better job of supporting our candidates throughout their time in our program–from when they first walk onto campus until the time they leave us as certified teachers. We still have relatively high attrition rates from the introductory education courses to coursework and clinical experiences later in the program.
We also think we can do better at the recruitment, retention, and job placement of teacher candidates of Color as they make their way through the MSU Teacher Preparation Program. In September of 2021, we set a goal that 20% of our completers would be Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) by 2030. You can read about these efforts in this report. In this table, we take a snapshot of enrollment trends at various points in our program.
We are committed to reducing barrier to teacher certification at Michigan State University. Not only have we cut the time to teacher certification, the state of Michigan is now offering teacher candidates support in the form of a stipend for student teaching and a fellowship to offset the cost of university tuition.
In short, the financial incentives and supports for becoming a teacher in the state of Michigan have never been better!
| Year | University Cost of Attendance |
|---|---|
| 2025-2026 | $36,962 (in-state tuition: $16,916) |
| 2024-2025 | $35,888 (in-state tuition: $16,188) |
| 2023-2024 | $32,731 (in-state tuition: $15,648) |
| 2022-2023 | $31,054 (in-state tuition: $15,192) |
| 2021-2022 | $29,898 (in-state tuition: $14,750) |
| 2020-2021 | $29,294 (in-state tuition: $14,460) |
| 2019-2020 | $29,220 (in-state tuition: $14,460) |
| 2018-2019 | $28,924 (in-state tuition: $14,460) |
To learn more about cost and aid, visit https://admissions.msu.edu/cost-aid.
Michigan Compiled Law (MCL 380.1538) authorizes the Michigan Department of Education to
collect fees for teacher licensure applications. The current cost of a Provisional Teaching Certificate is $160 for in-state applicants, and $210 for out-of-state applicants. Applications for additional endorsements cost $50. See this MDE document for more information.
Candidates in teacher preparation programs are required by Michigan state law to pass the Michigan Test for Teacher Certification (MTTC) in the area(s) relevant to their certification. For secondary teacher candidates, the cost of that exam is currently $129 (per test, per attempt). For students seeking elementary teacher certification, there are four subtests that candidates must pass that total $246 (see more information from the state of Michigan here).