Ranked #7 in popularity, criminal justice & corrections is one of the most sought-after bachelor's degree programs in the nation. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 16 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,645 bachelor'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 Bachelor's Degree
The criminal justice bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we consider a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a host of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their bachelor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your bachelor'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
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on criminal justice & corrections students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other criminal justice & corrections students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
Student Debt - How easy is it for criminal justice & corrections to pay back their student loans after receiving their bachelor's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized criminal justice & corrections related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for criminal justice & corrections students working on their bachelor's degree.
More Ways to Rank Criminal Justice & Corrections Schools
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region list to help you make the college decision.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
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Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections needs to check out Weber State University. Located in the small city of Ogden, WSU is a public university with a very large student population.
Soon after graduation, criminal justice bachelor's recipients typically make about $43,281 at the beginning of their careers.
Boise State University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Boise State is a fairly large public university located in the medium-sized city of Boise.
After graduating, criminal justice bachelor's recipients typically make an average of $37,891 in the first five years of their career.
Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections needs to take a look at Utah Valley University. UVU is a very large public university located in the city of Orem.
Bachelor's recipients from the criminal justice & corrections program at Utah Valley University get $2,250 more than the typical college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
It's hard to beat University of Northern Colorado if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. University of Northern Colorado is a moderately-sized public university located in the midsize city of Greeley.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the criminal justice program report average early career wages of $38,422.
Colorado State University - Global Campus is a medium-sized public university located in the city of Aurora.
Bachelor's recipients from the criminal justice & corrections major at Colorado State University - Global Campus make $19,985 more than the average college graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Located in the city of Denver, MSU Denver is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Criminal Justice & Corrections bachelor's degree recipients from Metropolitan State University of Denver earn a boost of around $2,696 above the average income of criminal justice & corrections majors.
CU Anschutz is a fairly large public university located in the city of Denver.
Criminal Justice & Corrections bachelor's degree recipients from University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus get an earnings boost of around $4,013 over the typical earnings of criminal justice & corrections majors.
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.
The criminal justice bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
