Ranked #7 in popularity, criminal justice & corrections is one of the most sought-after bachelor's 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 8 schools in Maryland to determine which ones were the best for criminal justice & corrections students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 646 bachelor's degrees in criminal justice & corrections to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Criminal Justice & Corrections School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The criminal justice bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. 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
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we consider a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a combination of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their bachelor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your bachelor's 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 - How many other criminal justice & corrections students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
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 bachelor's 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 bachelor's 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 Bachelor's Degree Schools in Maryland ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
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University of Maryland Global Campus is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the large suburb of Adelphi, UMGC is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the criminal justice & corrections major at University of Maryland Global Campus get $13,323 above the typical graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
It is hard to beat University of Baltimore if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the large city of Baltimore, UB is a public university with a small student population.
Criminal Justice & Corrections bachelor's degree recipients from University of Baltimore earn a boost of approximately $6,835 over the typical income of criminal justice & corrections graduates.
Stevenson University is a good choice for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the suburb of Owings Mills, Stevenson is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
Soon after graduation, criminal justice bachelor's recipients typically make an average of $38,745 in the first five years of their career.
Frostburg State University is a good decision for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the town of Frostburg, Frostburg State is a public university with a small student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the criminal justice program state that they receive average early career income of $40,844.
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 bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. 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:
