Canvas down for MU, other schools nationwide

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A popular learning management system used by colleges and universities around the country is currently down.

The University of Missouri in Columbia is among the thousands of schools who are having issues, the university announced in a social media post.

“We are aware that the Canvas online learning management system is down, as it is for universities across the nation. We will work with Canvas to restore access as soon as possible,” the post says.

MU Alert: We are aware that the Canvas online learning management system is down, as it is for universities across the nation. We will work with Canvas to restore access as soon as possible. Updates for the campus community will be posted at: https://t.co/140Ue13PMt.

— MU Alert (@MUalert) May 7, 2026

A message on MU’s IT system status website says, “The Canvas learning system is currently experiencing technical issues and may be unavailable. We will update the situation when more is known. Time to resolution is unknown at this time.”

Canvas is a website schools use that allows students to submit their homework and for instructors to place course materials.

Penn State University issued a press release on Thursday saying that it was experiencing a Canvas outage that was “related to an ongoing security incident affecting Instructure.”

“Out of an abundance of caution, users should avoid interacting with or clicking on any links, messages, or content that may be posted by threat actors or appear suspicious during this event,” Penn State’s statement says. “Penn State will never direct users to unverified third-party sites for Canvas-related communications or remediation activities.”

Instructure’s website says there was a “security incident” on Wednesday and that it is investigating issues on Thursday.

MU had experienced a Canvas outage in October 2025 after issues with AWS nationwide arose.

Check back updates.