If you plan on getting your master's degree in homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #14 in the country in terms of popularity. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 21 schools in the Great Lakes Region to determine which ones were the best for homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting students pursuing a master's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 736 master's degrees in homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Homeland Security, Law Enforcement & Firefighting School for Your Master's Degree
The homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting master'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
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 for a Master's Degree 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
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their master's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your master'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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting students who choose to seek a master'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 homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting students go into to obtain their master'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 homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting students working on their master's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Homeland Security, Law Enforcement & Firefighting Master's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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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.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
The homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting master'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:
