If you pursue a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #7 most popular program in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
College Factual reviewed 15 schools in Virginia to determine which ones were the best for bachelor's degree seekers in the field of criminal justice & corrections. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,705 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
Your choice of criminal justice & corrections for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality criminal justice program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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 ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
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 bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
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 bachelor'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 bachelor'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 bachelor'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 Bachelor's Degree Schools in Virginia.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
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It's difficult to beat George Mason University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. GMU is a very large public university located in the suburb of Fairfax.
Those criminal justice & corrections students who get their bachelor's degree from George Mason University make $3,350 more than the standard criminal justice student.
Liberty University is a wonderful decision for students interested in a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the city of Lynchburg, Liberty University is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Criminal Justice & Corrections bachelor's degree recipients from Liberty University earn a boost of around $8,593 over the average earnings of criminal justice & corrections graduates.
Virginia Commonwealth University is a good decision for students interested in a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the midsize city of Richmond, VCU is a public university with a very large student population.
Soon after graduating, criminal justice bachelor's recipients generally earn around $38,495 in the first five years of their career.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections has to check out Radford University. Radford is a moderately-sized public university located in the fringe town of Radford.
Soon after graduation, criminal justice bachelor's recipients usually make around $35,935 in the first five years of their career.
AU is a small private not-for-profit university located in the distant town of Danville.
Criminal Justice & Corrections bachelor's degree recipients from Averett University receive an earnings boost of about $3,232 over the average earnings of criminal justice & corrections majors.
Shenandoah is a small private not-for-profit university located in the small city of Winchester.
Criminal Justice & Corrections bachelor's degree recipients from Shenandoah University receive an earnings boost of approximately $6,554 over the average 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.