an associate degree in homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #4 out of 38 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 70 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Homeland Security, Law Enforcement & Firefighting Associate Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 4,169 associate 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 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. 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 account for this we include a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a combination of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Early-Career Earnings
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their associate degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. That is, everyone wants their associate degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
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 schools for homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting students working on their associate degree.
More Ways to Rank Homeland Security, Law Enforcement & Firefighting Schools
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 Associate Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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ADBLOCK #171
Best Schools for Associate Students to Study Homeland Security, Law Enforcement & Firefighting in the Middle Atlantic Region
Explore the top ranked colleges and universities for homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting students seeking a an associate degree. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
14 Top Middle Atlantic Region Schools for an Associate in Homeland Security, Law Enforcement & Firefighting
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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 Homeland Security, Law Enforcement & Firefighting Associate Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic 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.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).