Ranked #30 in popularity, criminal justice & corrections is one of the most sought-after master's degree programs in the nation. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
College Factual looked at 2 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Master's Degree Schools in West Virginia ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 219 master's degrees in criminal justice & corrections to qualified students.
DEBUG: Checking offer "Criminal Justice (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Criminal Justice (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - Law Enforcement (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Grad Cert - Law Enforcement (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Corrections (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Corrections (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Administration (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Administration (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Criminal Justice & Law Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Criminal Justice & Law Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Criminology (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Criminology (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - Criminology (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Grad Cert - Criminology (I Have a Bachelors)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 2
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 2 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.8
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 2
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 1 offers with relevance >= 1.0
Average Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their master's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their master's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
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 master'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 master'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 master'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 Master's Degree Schools in West Virginia list to help you make the college decision.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "protective-security-safety-services//criminal-justice-and-corrections"
It is hard to beat American Public University System if you want to pursue a master's degree in criminal justice & corrections. American Military University is a fairly large private for-profit university located in the town of Charles Town.
Criminal Justice & Corrections master's degree recipients from American Public University System receive an earnings boost of approximately $18,833 over the typical income of criminal justice & corrections graduates.
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.