Ranked #4 in popularity, criminal justice & corrections is one of the most sought-after associate degree programs in the nation. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
College Factual looked at 12 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Associate Degree Schools in Massachusetts ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 379 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
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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To account for this we consider a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a collection of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Early-Career Salaries
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their associate degree from the school. After all, your associate degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
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 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.
More Ways to Rank Criminal Justice & Corrections Schools
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 Massachusetts ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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It is hard to beat Quinsigamond Community College if you wish to pursue an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections. Quinsigamond Community College is a moderately-sized public college located in the medium-sized city of Worcester.
Students who graduate with their associate from the criminal justice program report average early career income of $40,039.
Bunker Hill Community College is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections. BHCC is a medium-sized public college located in the large city of Boston.
Criminal Justice & Corrections associate degree recipients from Bunker Hill Community College earn a boost of around $9,228 above the average income of criminal justice & corrections majors.
Northern Essex Community College is one of the finest schools in the country for getting an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the large suburb of Haverhill, NECC is a public college with a small student population.
Students who graduate with their associate from the criminal justice program report average early career earnings of $39,426.
Located in the large suburb of Wellesley Hills, MassBay Community College is a public college with a small student population.
Associate recipients from the criminal justice & corrections degree program at Massachusetts Bay Community College earn $6,799 above the average college grad with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Located in the suburb of Bedford, Middlesex Community College is a public college with a moderately-sized student population.
Criminal Justice & Corrections associate degree recipients from Middlesex Community College earn a boost of around $3,451 over the typical earnings of criminal justice & corrections graduates.
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.