a master's degree in criminology is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #130 out of 343 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 6 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Criminology Master's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 192 master's degrees in criminology during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Criminology School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of criminology for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality criminology 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 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 Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their master's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their master's 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 criminology students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other criminology students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
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 criminology 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 criminology related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for criminology 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 Criminology Master's 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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Gain the management, leadership, data analysis and budgeting skills you need to advance in the criminal justice field with this online master's from Southern New Hampshire University.
Saint Joseph's University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a master's degree in criminology. St. Joe's is a medium-sized private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Philadelphia.
Criminology master's degree recipients from Saint Joseph's University get an earnings boost of around $7,884 above the typical income of criminology graduates.
Indiana University of Pennsylvania - Main Campus is a wonderful decision for students interested in a master's degree in criminology. Located in the town of Indiana, IUP is a public university with a moderately-sized student population.
Students who graduate with their master's from the criminology program state that they receive average early career income of $45,821.
Stockton State is a medium-sized public university located in the rural area of Galloway.
Criminology master's degree recipients from Stockton University get an earnings boost of approximately $2,106 over the typical income of criminology majors.
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.