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.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 12 schools in Minnesota to determine which ones were the best for criminal justice & corrections students pursuing a associate degree. Combined, these schools handed out 367 associate degrees in criminal justice & corrections to qualified students.
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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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
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.
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 complete 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.
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 Minnesota list to help you make the college decision.
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Every student who is interested in an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections has to look into Alexandria Technical & Community College. Located in the town of Alexandria, ATCC is a public college with a small student population.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the criminal justice program earn an average of $46,511 for their early career.
It's difficult to beat Century College if you wish to pursue an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the suburb of White Bear Lake, Century College is a public college with a moderately-sized student population.
Criminal Justice & Corrections associate degree recipients from Century College get an earnings boost of around $3,469 above the average income of criminal justice & corrections majors.
It's difficult to beat Rasmussen University - Minnesota if you wish to pursue an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections. Rasmussen University - Minnesota is a moderately-sized private for-profit university located in the small city of St. Cloud.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the criminal justice program make around $47,447 for their early career.
Located in the large suburb of Brooklyn Park, North Hennepin Community College is a public college with a moderately-sized student population.
Criminal Justice & Corrections associate degree recipients from North Hennepin Community College earn a boost of around $3,092 over the average income of criminal justice & corrections majors.
Hibbing Community College is a small public college located in the remote town of Hibbing.
Criminal Justice & Corrections associate degree recipients from Hibbing Community College get an earnings boost of approximately $3,623 over the average 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.
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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
