Criminology is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #130 most popular master's degree program in the country. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 5 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Criminology Master's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 77 master's degrees in criminology to qualified students.
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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. 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 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 Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their master's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your master's 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
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 schools for criminology students working on their master's degree.
The criminology 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 Criminology Master's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region.
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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.
It's difficult to beat Texas A&M University - Commerce if you wish to pursue a master's degree in criminology. Located in the town of Commerce, Texas A&M Commerce is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Master's recipients from the criminology major at Texas A&M University - Commerce earn $11,916 more than the standard college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
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.
by our College Data Analytics Team
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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
