If you plan on getting your associate degree in homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #4 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 13 schools in North Carolina to determine which ones were the best for homeland security, law enforcement & firefighting students pursuing a associate degree. Combined, these schools handed out 968 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. 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 account for this we consider a college'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.
Average Early-Career Salaries
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their associate degree from the school. After all, your associate 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
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 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.
More Ways to Rank Homeland Security, Law Enforcement & Firefighting Schools
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 North Carolina list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
