Criminal Justice & Corrections is of the hottest associate degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #4 most popular major in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
College Factual looked at 2 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Associate Degree Schools in Maine ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 80 associate degrees in criminal justice & corrections to qualified students.
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Early-Career Earnings
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their associate degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. That is, everyone wants their associate degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
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 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.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Associate Degree Schools in Maine ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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Every student who is interested in an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections has to take a look at Southern Maine Community College. Located in the city of South Portland, SMCC is a public college with a medium-sized student population.
After graduating, criminal justice associate recipients usually earn an average of $44,869 at the beginning of their careers.
Any student who is interested in an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections needs to take a look at Central Maine Community College. Central Maine Technical College is a small public college located in the small city of Auburn.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the criminal justice program make around $43,112 in the first couple years of their career.
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.
