If you pursue a master's degree in criminal justice & corrections, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #30 most popular program in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
College Factual reviewed 14 schools in Texas to determine which ones were the best for master's degree seekers in the field of criminal justice & corrections. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 653 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
The criminal justice master'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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we include a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a host of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of master's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their master's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
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 schools for criminal justice & corrections students working on their master's degree.
More Ways to Rank Criminal Justice & Corrections Schools
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Master's Degree Schools in Texas list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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Any student who is interested in a master's degree in criminal justice & corrections needs to look into Sam Houston State University. SHSU is a fairly large public university located in the town of Huntsville.
Soon after graduation, criminal justice master's recipients generally make around $51,544 at the beginning of their careers.
Every student who is interested in a master's degree in criminal justice & corrections has to take a look at University of Houston - Downtown. Located in the city of Houston, UH Downtown is a public university with a large student population.
Master's recipients from the criminal justice & corrections degree program at University of Houston - Downtown make $13,140 above the typical graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
It is hard to beat Texas State University if you want to pursue a master's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Texas State is a fairly large public university located in the city of San Marcos.
Students who graduate with their master's from the criminal justice program state that they receive average early career wages of $47,760.
UNT is a very large public university located in the city of Denton.
Those criminal justice & corrections students who get their master's degree from University of North Texas make $2,879 more than the standard criminal justice grad.
Located in the town of Stephenville, Tarleton is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those criminal justice & corrections students who get their master's degree from Tarleton State University earn $6,774 more than the standard criminal justice student.
Located in the city of Beaumont, Lamar University is a public university with a large student population.
Those criminal justice & corrections students who get their master's degree from Lamar University make $8,277 more than the average criminal justice student.
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 master'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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
