Criminal Justice & Corrections is of the hottest bachelor's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #7 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 6 schools in West Virginia to determine which ones were the best for criminal justice & corrections students pursuing a bachelor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 769 bachelor's degrees in criminal justice & corrections during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Criminal Justice & Corrections School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of criminal justice & corrections for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. 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
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. 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
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of bachelor's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their bachelor's 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 - The number of criminal justice & corrections students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
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 bachelor's 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 colleges for criminal justice & corrections students working on their bachelor's 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 Bachelor's Degree Schools in West Virginia.
In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat.
Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.
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It is hard to beat American Public University System if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the town of Charles Town, American Military University is a private for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the criminal justice & corrections program at American Public University System get $20,363 more than the average college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Fairmont State University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the town of Fairmont, Fairmont State is a public university with a small student population.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the criminal justice program make an average of $36,179 in the first couple years of working.
It's hard to beat Marshall University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the city of Huntington, Marshall University is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the criminal justice program report average early career income of $32,747.
WVSU is a small public university located in the midsize suburb of Institute.
Criminal Justice & Corrections bachelor's degree recipients from West Virginia State University get an earnings boost of approximately $2,010 above the average income 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.
Your choice of criminal justice & corrections for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. 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.
