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.
College Factual looked at 8 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Homeland Security, Law Enforcement & Firefighting Associate Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 684 associate degrees in homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting during the 2022-2023 academic year.
DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - Law Enforcement (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Grad Cert - Law Enforcement (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Corrections (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Corrections (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Criminology (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Criminology (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - Criminology (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Grad Cert - Criminology (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 4
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 4 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.5
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 4
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 0 offers with relevance >= 1.0
DEBUG: Backfilling with 0 offers with relevance >= 0.9
DEBUG: Backfilling with 1 offers with relevance >= 0.8
Choosing a Great Homeland Security, Law Enforcement & Firefighting School for Your Associate Degree
Your choice of homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting for getting your associate degree school matters. 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 associate degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. 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.
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
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 associate 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 associate 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 full 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.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Homeland Security, Law Enforcement & Firefighting Associate Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "protective-security-safety-services"
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).
by our College Data Analytics Team
Your choice of homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting for getting your associate degree school matters. 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:
