If you pursue a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #7 most popular program in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 154 schools in the Southeast Region to determine which ones were the best for criminal justice & corrections students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 12,702 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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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 take this into account we consider a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a host of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
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 full 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 the Southeast Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
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Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study Criminal Justice & Corrections in the Southeast Region
The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
25 Top Southeast Region Schools for a Bachelor's in Criminal Justice
George Mason University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the suburb of Fairfax, GMU is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those criminal justice & corrections students who get their bachelor's degree from George Mason University earn $5,877 more than the typical criminal justice grad.
Florida State University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Florida State is a fairly large public university located in the city of Tallahassee.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the criminal justice program report average early career wages of $34,922.
Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections needs to check out American Public University System. American Military University is a fairly large private for-profit university located in the town of Charles Town.
Criminal Justice & Corrections bachelor's degree recipients from American Public University System receive an earnings boost of approximately $19,674 above the average earnings of criminal justice & corrections majors.
Keiser University - Ft Lauderdale is a good option for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the medium-sized city of Fort Lauderdale, Keiser University - Ft Lauderdale is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the criminal justice & corrections program at Keiser University - Ft Lauderdale earn $2,655 above the standard college grad in this field shortly after graduation.
Columbia Southern University is a large private for-profit university located in the fringe town of Orange Beach.
Criminal Justice & Corrections bachelor's degree recipients from Columbia Southern University receive an earnings boost of about $22,726 over the average earnings of criminal justice & corrections majors.
Liberty University is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the small city of Lynchburg.
Those criminal justice & corrections students who get their bachelor's degree from Liberty University make $11,120 more than the typical criminal justice grad.
St. Leo University is a large private not-for-profit university located in the town of Saint Leo.
Criminal Justice & Corrections bachelor's degree recipients from Saint Leo University get an earnings boost of approximately $10,118 above the typical income of criminal justice & corrections graduates.
The Citadel is a small public college located in the medium-sized city of Charleston.
Criminal Justice & Corrections bachelor's degree recipients from Citadel Military College of South Carolina get an earnings boost of approximately $7,500 over the typical earnings of criminal justice & corrections majors.
Located in the suburb of Fort Myers, FGCU is a public university with a large student population.
Criminal Justice & Corrections bachelor's degree recipients from Florida Gulf Coast University get an earnings boost of around $2,344 above the typical income of criminal justice & corrections majors.
Located in the suburb of Fort Pierce, Indian River State College is a public college with a fairly large student population.
Criminal Justice & Corrections bachelor's degree recipients from Indian River State College earn a boost of about $5,616 over the typical income of criminal justice & corrections majors.
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Honorable Mentions
These are some additional schools worth mentioning that are also great but just didn't quite make the cut to earn our top Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Southeast Region award.
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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
