# Studying in Kirksville: universities, housing and student life URL: https://edufabtech.com/blog/studying-in-kirksville-universities-housing-student-life Section: Blog · Student Cities Published: 2026-10-28 Publisher: EduFabTech (https://edufabtech.com) > Kirksville is a town of about 17,500 built around two very different schools. Here is how housing, second-hand shopping, transit, libraries and part-time work actually work for students there. ## A town of 17,500 built around two campuses Kirksville sits in the rolling farm country of northeast Missouri, the seat of Adair County, closer to the Iowa line than to any large city. It is small: the American Community Survey five-year estimates for 2020–2024, compiled by Census Reporter, put the population at 17,563, with a median household income of $50,071 and a poverty rate of 28.2% — figures shaped heavily by the thousands of students who live here for part of the year. For most of the people walking its streets in term time, "Kirksville" means one of two institutions with almost nothing in common except the town they share. The geography is quickly learned. US Highway 63 runs north–south through the city and is the main road in and out; State Highways 6 and 11 cross it, and the tourism office notes the nearest Amtrak stop is at La Plata, twelve miles south, where the Southwest Chief calls daily in each direction. There is no interstate within an easy drive and no city bus network of the kind a larger town would have. That isolation is the single fact that explains most of what follows — how people find rooms, how they furnish them, how they get to a bigger supermarket or an airport. What Kirksville does have is a compact, walkable centre. The old courthouse square and the retail strip along Franklin and Washington Streets are the social spine of the town, and both universities sit within a short walk or drive of it. Students who do not keep a car can live most of their week inside a radius of a mile or two, which is just as well, because the alternatives for getting further afield are limited. ![A bar chart compares Truman State's 2026–27 per-semester housing rates — Missouri Hall, the newer suites, single rooms, and Campbell apartments — against the university's year-long room-and-board estimate.](https://edufabtech.com/uploads/2026/10/studying-in-kirksville-universities-housing-student-life-2.png) *A bar chart compares Truman State's 2026–27 per-semester housing rates — Missouri Hall, the newer suites, single rooms, and Campbell apartments — against the university's year-long room-and-board estimate. — EduFabTech · Own work* ## Truman State and A.T. Still: two schools, two worlds Truman State University is the larger undergraduate presence and the reason most 18-year-olds come to Kirksville. It was founded in 1867, when, as the university's own history page records, Joseph Baldwin opened the North Missouri Normal School and Commercial College in the town. For most of the twentieth century it was a regional teachers' college known latterly as Northeast Missouri State University; in 1985 the legislature, under a bill signed by Governor John Ashcroft, redesignated it as Missouri's only statewide public liberal arts and sciences university, and on 1 July 1996 it took its present name in honour of Harry S. Truman. Truman describes its mission on its about page as offering an undergraduate education "grounded in the liberal arts and sciences" to well-prepared students — it is a selective, residential, four-year school rather than a large commuter university, and its culture reflects that. A.T. Still University is something else entirely, and students often confuse the two before they arrive. ATSU is a private health-sciences university, and Kirksville is its birthplace: according to its history page, Andrew Taylor Still founded the American School of Osteopathy here in 1892, "the first osteopathic university in the world," with an inaugural class of five women and sixteen men who graduated in 1894. The university today spans three campuses — Kirksville plus Mesa, Arizona and San Luis Obispo, California — with seven schools and, the page states, an average annual enrolment of 5,000 students from 35 countries. In Kirksville the flagship is the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine. Its students are graduate professionals, older than the typical Truman undergraduate, often with partners and families, and that changes the kind of housing and services they look for. The practical upshot: if you are an undergraduate, your questions below are mostly Truman's answers; if you are a medical or health-sciences student, you will skip the first-year residence rules and go straight to the off-campus market. Both groups share the same thrift shops, the same farmers' market and the same single transit route. ## The first-year rule, and what comes after it At Truman the first housing decision is made for you. The residence-life FAQ states plainly that "all first-year students are required to live on campus" their first academic year, and that a student who starts in the autumn may not move off campus for the spring. Exemptions are narrow and must be appealed: living within 50 miles of campus with an immediate family member, being released for marriage, parenthood or being over 21, or transferring in with 30 or more credit hours. For a new undergraduate from abroad or out of state, this means your first year's roof is settled through the university, not a landlord — a genuine simplification, and one less chance to be caught by a scam. ![A side-by-side comparison of Truman State and A.T. Still University contrasts their founding dates, student profiles, first-year housing rules, and campus setting.](https://edufabtech.com/uploads/2026/10/studying-in-kirksville-universities-housing-student-life-3.png) *A side-by-side comparison of Truman State and A.T. Still University contrasts their founding dates, student profiles, first-year housing rules, and campus setting. — EduFabTech · Own work* The off-campus hunt begins in the second year, and for ATSU students from day one. The stock is mostly older houses subdivided into student flats and small purpose-built blocks within walking distance of campus and the square, plus a ring of plainer apartments further out along the highway. Because the market is small and turns over on the academic calendar, the sensible rhythm is to start looking in the winter and early spring for a lease that begins the following August; the best-placed houses near Truman go first. Do not sign anything you have not seen. In a town this size you can almost always visit a property in person or send someone you trust, and you should: view the actual unit, meet whoever manages it, and get the full cost — rent, deposit, and which utilities are included — in writing before any money moves. The scam pattern here is the ordinary one for a small college town. Fake listings copy photographs of real local houses and surface on general classified sites and social-media groups aimed at incoming students who cannot visit before term. The warning sign is always the same: a "landlord" who is conveniently out of town, cannot show you the place, and wants a deposit to "hold" it. No legitimate Kirksville landlord needs a wire transfer, a gift card or cryptocurrency to reserve a room. Pay a deposit only after you have seen the unit and have a signed lease, and keep the first payment traceable. EduFabTech's own [rooms listings for Kirksville](https://edufabtech.com/in/united-states/kirksville/rooms) and the wider [city page](https://edufabtech.com/in/united-states/kirksville) are a starting point, as are the boards near each campus — but the rule does not change: see it first. ## What a room actually costs On-campus pricing is the one figure you can pin down exactly. Truman's 2026–2027 housing rates are quoted per semester, per person: a standard double in Missouri Hall is $3,779, while a double in the newer BNB, Ryle and West Campus Suites runs to $4,024; single rooms range from $4,466 to $4,813. A one-bedroom apartment in Campbell is $3,342.50 and a two-bedroom $5,100.50. Hall residents are required to carry a meal plan — the same page lists the 21-meals-a-week plan at $2,373 a semester — though Campbell apartment residents may opt out. Taken together, Truman's 2026–2027 cost-of-attendance sheet estimates room and board for the year at $13,034 for residents and non-residents alike. Off-campus rents are harder to state with the same confidence; a reliable, current municipal median for Kirksville specifically was not something this guide could confirm from an authoritative source, so treat any single figure you see online with caution and compare several actual listings instead. What you can say is that the university's own numbers give a firm ceiling to measure against: if a shared off-campus house works out well below roughly $13,000 a year all in, it is doing better than the dorm; if not, the convenience of on-campus living starts to look like fair value. ## Furnishing a room: the square, the thrift shops and the Saturday market Because students arrive and leave on the same calendar, Kirksville recycles furniture efficiently, and most of it passes through a handful of second-hand shops. Hidden Treasures, a consignment and thrift store on the downtown square at 104 W. Harrison Street, and The Crossing Thrift Store at 1105 S. Baltimore Street are both listed among local resources by Truman's Interfaith Center, which also notes a Salvation Army thrift store on South Baltimore that has offered a student discount with ID. For furniture and household odds and ends there is a Goodwill on South Franklin Street, and the tourism office's shopping guide points to antique dealers including Afterlife Antiques at 108 N. Franklin Street and Lawson Hill Antiques on North Baltimore. Confirm opening hours before a trip, as small-shop hours change. For food and the small pleasure of a weekend ritual, the Kiwanis Farmers' Market runs downtown on Saturday mornings from 7:00 a.m. to noon, May through October, according to the same tourism guide, selling local produce and baked goods. None of this replaces a full supermarket run, for which most students drive or share a ride. If you would rather buy from other students directly, EduFabTech's [second-hand](https://edufabtech.com/in/united-states/kirksville/second-hand) and [furniture](https://edufabtech.com/in/united-states/kirksville/furniture) pages for the city collect what is being sold and given away as leases turn over in August and May. ## Working while you study Term-time work in Kirksville is mostly on campus and mostly a few hours a week. For international students the rules are federal, not local. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Study in the States guidance states that an F-1 student in on-campus employment "may not work more than 20 hours per week when school is in session." Truman's own guidance for international students repeats this — on-campus work up to 20 hours a week while classes are in session (scholarship service hours included) and up to 39 hours a week during breaks and holidays — and warns that on-campus jobs are limited and should not be relied on as a significant source of financial support. The same page cautions that working off campus without authorisation results in loss of non-immigrant status; practical training such as CPT and OPT is arranged through the Center for International Students. Nothing here is legal advice — confirm your own situation with the DHS page above and your designated school official before you accept any job. General part-time openings in town are gathered on EduFabTech's [Kirksville jobs](https://edufabtech.com/in/united-states/kirksville/jobs) page. ## Libraries and quiet places to read Truman's academic heart for studying is Pickler Memorial Library on the main campus; its hours shift with the academic calendar, running long into the evening in term and shorter over breaks, so check the library's schedule for the day you need. For health-sciences students, A.T. Still University keeps its own medical library on the Kirksville campus. Beyond the libraries, the student union and the many small lounges in the residence halls absorb most late-night reading, and the downtown cafés give a change of scene within a short walk. EduFabTech's [study-spaces](https://edufabtech.com/in/united-states/kirksville/study-spaces) listings for the city are worth a look when the library is full in exam weeks. ## Getting around — and getting out Kirksville has one public transit option, and it is modest. Kirk-Tran, the City of Kirksville's service, runs a deviated fixed route whose fares, per the city's page, are $3.00 for a one-way trip within the city limits and $4.00 for a trip outside them within a 15-mile radius of downtown; a $20 punch card is sold by the driver or at City Hall, and children under 12 ride free with an adult. The city page gives the deviated route's hours as Monday through Thursday 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Friday until 9:00 p.m., and Saturday 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., repeating hourly. No student discount is advertised on that page, so do not assume one exists; carry exact change. For most students the honest answer is that the town is walkable and bikeable, and that longer errands mean a car or a shared ride. Leaving Kirksville takes planning. Kirksville Regional Airport is served by Contour Airlines, which the tourism office says flies daily to Chicago O'Hare; for rail, the La Plata Amtrak station twelve miles south puts you on the Southwest Chief toward Chicago or Los Angeles. Both are small operations with limited frequency, so book early and build in margin. There is no quick dash to a major hub. ## The honest ledger, and a first-weeks checklist What is good about Kirksville for a student is real. It is cheap by the standard of coastal college towns, it is small enough that you can walk your whole week, and the first-year residence requirement removes the hardest housing decision at the moment you are least equipped to make it. The two universities give the place more cultural weight than its size suggests, and the second-hand economy makes furnishing a room genuinely inexpensive. What is hard is also real: the isolation is not a figure of speech, winters in northeast Missouri are cold, the transit network is a single route, and anyone without a car will feel the limits of a town two hundred miles from a big city. The high local poverty rate in the census figures is a reminder that the student bubble and the rest of Adair County do not always overlap. For the first few weeks, a short list keeps the essentials in order: - If you are a new Truman undergraduate, confirm your on-campus assignment and meal plan through Residence Life rather than looking off campus — the first-year requirement applies. - If you are off campus, never pay a deposit before you have seen the unit and signed a lease; refuse any request to wire money or pay by gift card to "hold" a room. - Buy the bulky things — desk, chair, kitchen kit — second-hand from the downtown shops or other students in the first fortnight, before the August stock is gone. - International students: read the DHS and Center for International Students pages on work, and keep to the 20-hour on-campus limit during term. - Sort out how you will leave town for a break early — the airport and the La Plata train have few departures and fill up. - Save the Pickler Library schedule and the Kirk-Tran hours somewhere you can find them in week one. Get those settled and Kirksville becomes what it is best at being: a quiet, affordable place to concentrate on the degree you came for. ## Sources 1. Truman State University. (2026). 2026-2027 Housing Rates. Truman State University https://www.truman.edu/residence-life/housing-options/housing-rates/ 2. Truman State University. (2026). History. Truman State University https://www.truman.edu/about/history/ 3. A.T. Still University. (2026). History of ATSU. A.T. Still University https://www.atsu.edu/about-atsu/history 4. City of Kirksville. (2026). Kirk-Tran. City of Kirksville https://kirksvillecity.com/p/kirk-tran 5. U.S. Department of Homeland Security. (2026). Working in the United States. Study in the States https://studyinthestates.dhs.gov/students/work/working-in-the-united-states --- Source page: https://edufabtech.com/blog/studying-in-kirksville-universities-housing-student-life Quote with a link to the source page. © EduFabTech.