If you pursue a associate degree in criminal justice & corrections, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #4 most popular program in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 316 schools in the United States to determine which ones were the best for criminal justice & corrections students pursuing a associate degree. Combined, these schools handed out 24,183 associate degrees in criminal justice & corrections to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Criminal Justice & Corrections School for Your Associate Degree
Your choice of criminal justice & corrections for getting your associate degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. 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 take this into account we include a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a combination of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of associate graduates during the early years of their career. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their associate 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 - The number of criminal justice & corrections students who choose to seek a associate degree at the school.
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 associate degree.
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 associate 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 Associate Degree Schools list to help you make the college decision.
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ADBLOCK #171
Best Schools for Associate Students to Study Criminal Justice & Corrections in the United States
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
25 Top Schools for an Associate in Criminal Justice
Keiser University - Ft Lauderdale is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the midsize city of Fort Lauderdale, Keiser University - Ft Lauderdale is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Students who graduate with their associate from the criminal justice program state that they receive average early career earnings of $33,292.
Every student pursuing a degree in an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections needs to check out University of Phoenix - Arizona. Located in the large city of Phoenix, UOPX - Arizona is a private for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Criminal Justice & Corrections associate degree recipients from University of Phoenix - Arizona receive an earnings boost of about $6,741 over the typical earnings of criminal justice & corrections graduates.
Columbia Southern University is a large private for-profit university located in the town of Orange Beach.
Criminal Justice & Corrections associate degree recipients from Columbia Southern University get an earnings boost of approximately $23,829 over the average earnings of criminal justice & corrections graduates.
Gateway Technical College is a large public college located in the city of Kenosha.
Criminal Justice & Corrections associate degree recipients from Gateway Technical College earn a boost of approximately $4,469 over the average income of criminal justice & corrections graduates.
Purdue University Global is a very large public university located in the city of West Lafayette.
Those criminal justice & corrections students who get their associate degree from Purdue University Global make $16,469 more than the standard criminal justice graduate.
ATCC is a small public college located in the remote town of Alexandria.
Those criminal justice & corrections students who get their associate degree from Alexandria Technical & Community College receive $12,099 more than the standard criminal justice grad.
American Military University is a fairly large private for-profit university located in the fringe town of Charles Town.
Associate recipients from the criminal justice & corrections degree program at American Public University System earn $12,566 above the average college grad with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
SNHU is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the medium-sized suburb of Manchester.
Associate recipients from the criminal justice & corrections major at Southern New Hampshire University get $8,545 above the standard college grad in this field shortly after graduation.
Century College is a moderately-sized public college located in the large suburb of White Bear Lake.
Criminal Justice & Corrections associate degree recipients from Century College get an earnings boost of about $19,762 over the average income of criminal justice & corrections graduates.
Located in the medium-sized suburb of Appleton, FVTC is a public college with a large student population.
Those criminal justice & corrections students who get their associate degree from Fox Valley Technical College make $5,159 more than the average criminal justice student.
Liberty University is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the small city of Lynchburg.
Those criminal justice & corrections students who get their associate degree from Liberty University earn $8,875 more than the standard criminal justice graduate.
Located in the remote town of Sault Ste Marie, Lake Superior State University is a public university with a small student population.
Associate recipients from the criminal justice & corrections major at Lake Superior State University get $10,223 above the typical college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
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Additional Award Winners
This list shows the remainder of the schools awarded a Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Associate Degree Schools badge.
Showing in this list means the college was ranked in the top 20% of the 316 different United States criminal justice & corrections schools we analyzed.
Here are some additional great schools for Criminal Justice & Corrections students that almost earned our Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Associate Degree Schools award.
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.