Several colleges and departments within Michigan State University cooperate to offer the Master of Science in Forensic Science. These include the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources in cooperation with the Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies; the College of Human Medicine in cooperation with the Department of Radiology; the College of Natural Science in cooperation with the departments of Chemistry; Pharmacology and Toxicology, Statistics and Probability, and Zoology as well as the Center for Advanced Microscopy, the Genetics Program and the Biomedical Laboratory Diagnostics Program; and the College of Social Science in cooperation with the Department of Anthropology and the School of Criminal Justice. The School of Criminal Justice is the primary administrative unit.

A thesis is required of all students pursuing Plan A and opportunities exist for an internship in a practicing United States or international forensic science laboratory.

Michigan State University has long been recognized as a premier institution for research and education in forensic science, and is home to a number of excellent resources for the study of forensic science.

The School of Criminal Justice maintains modern laboratory facilities containing equipment and instrumentation for the analysis of virtually any type of physical evidence, from chromatography equipment for drugs, explosives, and arson evidence, to microscopy techniques for trace evidence analysis, to genetic analyzers for the analysis of DNA.

The Forensic Science Masters program at Michigan State University is designed to give students a broad theoretical and practical background in the scientific, legal, and investigative aspects of forensic science while providing the opportunity to study one of the major disciplines in depth.