Criminal Justice & Corrections is of the hottest master's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #30 most popular major in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 3 schools in Arizona to determine which ones were the best for criminal justice & corrections students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 360 master's degrees in criminal justice & corrections during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Criminal Justice & Corrections School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of criminal justice & corrections for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality criminal justice program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their master's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your master's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to criminal justice & corrections students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of criminal justice & corrections students who choose to seek a master's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How much debt criminal justice & corrections students go into to obtain their master's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized criminal justice & corrections related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for criminal justice & corrections students working on their master's degree.
The criminal justice school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Master's Degree Schools in Arizona.
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Every student who is interested in a master's degree in criminal justice & corrections has to take a look at Arizona State University - Skysong. Located in the midsize city of Scottsdale, ASU - Skysong is a public university with a very large student population.
Those criminal justice & corrections students who get their master's degree from Arizona State University - Skysong make $7,597 more than the standard criminal justice student.
University of Phoenix - Arizona is a great decision for individuals interested in a master's degree in criminal justice & corrections. UOPX - Arizona is a very large private for-profit university located in the large city of Phoenix.
Soon after graduation, criminal justice master's recipients usually earn about $49,871 at the beginning of their careers.
It's difficult to beat Grand Canyon University if you wish to pursue a master's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the city of Phoenix, Grand Canyon University is a private for-profit university with a very large student population.
Students who graduate with their master's from the criminal justice program state that they receive average early career wages of $50,294.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
Your choice of criminal justice & corrections for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality criminal justice program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
