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.
College Factual reviewed 51 schools in the Great Lakes Region to determine which ones were the best for associate degree seekers in the field of criminal justice & corrections. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 3,419 associate degrees in criminal justice & corrections during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Criminal Justice & Corrections School for Your Associate Degree
The criminal justice associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. 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
The overall quality of a associate degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. 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
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
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 - How many other criminal justice & corrections students want to attend this school to pursue a associate degree.
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 associate 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 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 associate degree.
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 in the Great Lakes Region 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 Great Lakes Region
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.
10 Top Great Lakes Region Schools for an Associate in Criminal Justice
Gateway Technical College is one of the best schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the small city of Kenosha, Gateway Technical College is a public college with a large student population.
Students who graduate with their associate from the criminal justice program report average early career income of $38,881.
It is hard to beat Ivy Tech Community College if you want to pursue an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the large city of Indianapolis, Ivy Tech Community College is a public college with a very large student population.
After graduation, criminal justice associate recipients generally make around $34,299 in their early careers.
Purdue University Global is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the small city of West Lafayette, Purdue University Global is a public university with a very large student population.
Criminal Justice & Corrections associate degree recipients from Purdue University Global get an earnings boost of approximately $11,762 over the average income of criminal justice & corrections majors.
It's hard to beat Fox Valley Technical College if you wish to pursue an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections. FVTC is a large public college located in the midsize suburb of Appleton.
Students who graduate with their associate from the criminal justice program report average early career earnings of $39,571.
Lake Superior State University is a small public university located in the town of Sault Ste Marie.
Those criminal justice & corrections students who get their associate degree from Lake Superior State University earn $5,516 more than the typical criminal justice graduate.
Located in the town of Big Rapids, Ferris is a public university with a moderately-sized student population.
Criminal Justice & Corrections associate degree recipients from Ferris State University receive an earnings boost of approximately $9,084 over the average income of criminal justice & corrections majors.
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Additional Noteworthy Schools
Here are some additional great schools for Criminal Justice & Corrections students in the Great Lakes Region that almost earned our Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Associate Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region 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.
The criminal justice associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. 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:
