Criminology is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #53 most popular bachelor's degree program in the country. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
College Factual reviewed 27 schools in the Middle Atlantic Region to determine which ones were the best for bachelor's degree seekers in the field of criminology. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,750 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. 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 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 bachelor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your bachelor'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 - 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 colleges for criminology students working on their bachelor's degree.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Criminology Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region list to help you make the college decision.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
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University of Maryland - College Park is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in criminology. UMCP is a fairly large public university located in the large suburb of College Park.
Bachelor's recipients from the criminology major at University of Maryland - College Park earn $6,375 more than the typical college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
University of Delaware is a great decision for students interested in a bachelor's degree in criminology. UD is a fairly large public university located in the suburb of Newark.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the criminology program make an average of $35,968 for their early career.
It's difficult to beat Indiana University of Pennsylvania - Main Campus if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in criminology. Located in the distant town of Indiana, IUP is a public university with a moderately-sized student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the criminology program report average early career earnings of $37,911.
St. Joe's is a medium-sized private not-for-profit university located in the city of Philadelphia.
Criminology bachelor's degree recipients from Saint Joseph's University receive an earnings boost of about $5,960 above the average earnings of criminology graduates.
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.
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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
