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.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 16 schools in Florida to determine which ones were the best for criminal justice & corrections students pursuing a associate degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 564 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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
The overall quality of a associate degree school is important to ensure a quality 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 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
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 schools for criminal justice & corrections students working on their associate degree.
The criminal justice school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Associate Degree Schools in Florida.
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It is hard to beat Keiser University - Ft Lauderdale if you wish to pursue an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections. Keiser University - Ft Lauderdale is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the midsize city of Fort Lauderdale.
After graduating, criminal justice associate recipients usually make an average of $33,292 in the first five years of their career.
It is hard to beat Hillsborough Community College if you wish to pursue an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the city of Tampa, HCC is a public college with a fairly large student population.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the criminal justice program make around $33,013 in the first couple years of their career.
Seminole State College of Florida is one of the best schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the city of Sanford, Seminole State is a public college with a large student population.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the criminal justice program earn around $36,589 in the first couple years of working.
It is hard to beat Broward College if you want to pursue an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections. BC is a fairly large public college located in the city of Fort Lauderdale.
Associate students who receive their degree from the criminal justice program make about $34,607 in the first couple years of working.
Located in the town of Saint Leo, St. Leo University is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Associate recipients from the criminal justice & corrections major at Saint Leo University make $2,634 above the standard college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Rasmussen University - Florida is a small private for-profit university located in the city of Ocala.
Those criminal justice & corrections students who get their associate degree from Rasmussen University - Florida receive $12,845 more than the standard 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 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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
