• Universities

Mahasarakham University (MSU) started out as the College of Education, Mahasarakham. It became a regional campus of Srinakharinwirot University in 1974, with four faculties: education, humanities, social sciences and science.In 1994, the university gained independent status to become Thailand’s 22nd public university. Rapid expansion saw Mahasarakham offer undergraduate and post-graduate degree programmes in three academic areas - social sciences; pure and applied science; and health science – and set up the Khamriang Campus in 1998, 7km from the original campus (both are situated in the Masha Sarakham Province, and are around 470km from Bangkok).Student enrolment now stands at over 40,000 across 177 undergraduate and postgraduate programmes including 87 bachelor's, 57 master's and 33 PhD programmes. There are 17 faculties in total: music; politics and governance; cultural science; education; fine and applied arts; humanities and social sciences; law; faculty of tourism and hotel management; Mahasarakham Business School; medicine; nursing; pharmacy, public health; veterinary medicine and animal science; architecture; urban design, and creative arts; engineering; environment and resource studies; informatics, and science and technology. There are also a number of research centres including the first natural medicinal mushroom museum and learning centre in Asia.Other MSU firsts are that is the only Thai university to offer paleontology at MSc and PhD level, the first university in the country to establish a faculty of cultural sciences and the first to join the Microsoft Regional Campus IT Program. Furthermore, its faculty of education was voted as Thailand’s Best Education Faculty by the National Education Office.Student facilities and activities available include venues for sports (swimming, basketball, takraw, badminton, tennis and football), a performance centre, two book centres, a computer centre, banks, post office, a medical centre, and MSU Plaza has shops including a pharmacy, a convenience store and a stationery shop.