Homeland Security, Law Enforcement & Firefighting is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #4 most popular associate degree program in the country. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 30 schools in the Far Western US Region to determine which ones were the best for homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting students pursuing a associate degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 8,090 associate degrees in homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Homeland Security, Law Enforcement & Firefighting School for Your Associate Degree
The homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To account for this we consider a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a collection of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of associate graduates during the early years of their career. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their associate 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 many resources a school devotes to homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting students want to attend this school to pursue a associate 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 homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting to pay back their student loans after receiving their associate degree.
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 associate degree.
More Ways to Rank Homeland Security, Law Enforcement & Firefighting Schools
The homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting 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 Homeland Security, Law Enforcement & Firefighting Associate Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region.
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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 associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
