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 reviewed 3 schools in Nebraska 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 115 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 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 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 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.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Associate Degree Schools in Nebraska list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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It is hard to beat Northeast Community College if you wish to pursue an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections. Northeast is a moderately-sized public college located in the remote town of Norfolk.
Associate recipients from the criminal justice & corrections major at Northeast Community College get $3,048 more than the average college grad in this field shortly after graduation.
It's difficult to beat Southeast Community College Area if you wish to pursue an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the large city of Lincoln, Southeast Community College is a public college with a moderately-sized student population.
Soon after graduation, criminal justice associate recipients generally make an average of $28,473 in the first five years of their career.
It is hard to beat Metropolitan Community College if you want to pursue an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections. MCC is a large public college located in the large city of Omaha.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the criminal justice program earn around $28,511 in their early career salary.
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:
