a bachelor's degree in criminology is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #53 out of 363 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
College Factual looked at 6 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Criminology Bachelor's Degree Schools in Illinois ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 246 bachelor's degrees in criminology during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Criminology School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The criminology bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. 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 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 bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor'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 - The number of criminology students who choose to seek a bachelor's 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 easy is it for criminology to pay back their student loans after receiving their bachelor's degree.
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 bachelor's degree.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Criminology Bachelor's Degree Schools in Illinois list, to help you choose the best school for you.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
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Southern Illinois University Carbondale is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in criminology. SIUC is a large public university located in the distant town of Carbondale.
Criminology bachelor's degree recipients from Southern Illinois University Carbondale earn a boost of approximately $2,321 above the average income of criminology graduates.
DePaul University is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in criminology. Located in the large city of Chicago, DePaul is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.More information about a bachelor’s in criminology from DePaul University
Concordia University, Chicago is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in criminology. Concordia University, Chicago is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of River Forest.
Criminology bachelor's degree recipients from Concordia University, Chicago earn a boost of around $6,400 above the typical income of criminology majors.
Illinois College is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in criminology. Located in the distant town of Jacksonville, Illinois College is a private not-for-profit college with a small student population.More information about a bachelor’s in criminology from Illinois College
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
The criminology bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. 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:
