The best criminal justice research universities are those with rich histories of influence, proven through the work produced by the program’s faculty and alumni. Beyond demonstrating scholarly impact in the field, the best criminal justice degree programs maximize your opportunities to interact with outstanding criminal justice faculty.
A bachelor’s degree in criminal justice is an excellent starting point for a career in policing, corrections, homeland security, and a host of other important roles related to crime, justice, and public safety. As a criminal justice major, you’ll study three primary subject areas—law enforcement, corrections, and the courts. Majoring in criminal justice is a good starting point if you plan to study policing, law, administration of justice, counter-terrorism, and more. You’ll study related subjects including criminal psychology, rehabilitation, and sociology. And if you’re interested in eventually going to law school and becoming a practicing attorney, majoring in criminal justice could be a good starting point. A degree in criminal justice will give you the knowledge and qualifications to contribute to public safety, national security, social justice, and a host of other related fields.
Degree popularity: Criminal justice bachelor’s degrees are the 16th most popular undergraduate degrees across all student demographics. It is slightly more popular among men. Crimianl justice degrees rank 6th among Black men, 8th for Black women, 8th among Hispanic men, and 15th for Hispanic women, according to the number of degree earners reported by the National Center for Educational Statistics.
Earning a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice can open numerous professional doors. As noted above, the study of criminal justice is divided into three key areas: law enforcement, corrections, and the court system. Within each of these areas, there are countless avenues to a career. Whether you wish to work in a police precinct, for the Department of Homeland Security, as part of a private security firm, as a private detective, or in a specialized field like the prevention of cybercrime, majoring in criminal justice can help you get there.
Today, top influencers in Criminal Justice are working on felon disenfranchisement, place-based criminology, alternative drug policies, and much more.
Back to TopCriminal justice is a popular major because it can provide pathways into countless fields and career opportunities. If you’re looking for a well-paying and secure job, a criminal justice degree is a great place to start. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2019, the average median pay for police officers and detectives was $65,170. For Detectives and Criminal Investigators, that figure was $81,920 in 2018. And if you parlay your criminal justice major into a postgraduate law degree, note that lawyers, in 2019, earned a well-above-average median pay of $122,960.
Back to TopOnce you’ve declared your major in criminal justice, you will likely be required to complete a set of core courses in a number of related subject areas. While your concentration will give you a chance to choose from a wide range of highly-specialized criminal justice electives, there are a number of common courses that most Criminal justice majors will be required to take, including:
With a degree in criminal justice, you could qualify for an array of opportunities in law enforcement, security, forensics, counter-terrorism, corrections, and much more. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) identifies the following top jobs in criminal justice:
In pursuing a bachelor’s degree, you will need to choose between three kinds of schools: research universities, liberal arts colleges, and online colleges.
Research universities are colleges and universities whose faculty are active in research and publishing. These schools offer a wide array of doctoral programs, especially in the sciences. They tend to be big, with tens of thousands of students.
Do you prefer a larger university setting, such as largest public university in your state? Research universities are typically big, offering degrees in many different disciplines. Is a big high-powered research environment the thing for you. If not, you should think about a liberal arts college. In deciding on an undergraduate institution, ask yourself what sort of environment will best help you to be happy and excel.
Often referred to as “teaching colleges” liberal arts colleges put a premium on undergraduate studies and offers a broad range of subjects for students to study. A college of liberal arts typically provides smaller class sizes, more direct engagement with professors, and, most importantly, the opportunity to sample a wide range of subject areas on the way to a bachelor’s degree.
Online colleges are typically the same colleges and universities you could attend in-person, but for certain degree programs the college or unviersity has made the degree programs available to be completed online. For over 5 million students, online degree programs allow students to earn their degrees in the most flexible format available. Online degrees are as respected as the on-campus degress you could earn from the same schools. There’s usually no disctinction between the two degrees, and your degree and transcript will not say that the degree was earned online. Online degree programs are offered by a vast majority of colleges and universities, and the number of offering continues to grow. Whehter you are searching for an associate, bachelor’s, master’s, or doctorate, there’s a good chance you can earn your degree online from a respectable online college.
If you interested in an online bachelor’s degree, check out what the best online colleges offer, or search our online degrees for the exact program that interests you. In either case, you will find well respected colleges and universities that offer online degrees.
Back to TopIf you think a liberal arts college may be a better fit for you, see our ranking of the best liberal arts colleges for a bachelor’s in computer-science.
The people affiliated with a school are ultimately what make it great. This is why we rank the best colleges and universities based on what we call “Influence”.
The influence of a college or university is based on the schools’ top academic influencers related to the discipline in this ranking. We track the influence of faculty and alumni affialiate with these school counting not only the publicaitons and citations of the school’s affiliated people, but we also consider the overall web presense of the faculty and alumni. The greater the citations, authority of web links, web searches, and pageviews, the greater the individuals’ influence. Those combined make up the departments’ influence in the field of study. We believe tracking the academic influence of the people affiliated with a school is the best indicator of academic excellence.
If you are serious about finding the best colleges and universities, you should be asking where the most influential professors are teaching, and whether their graduates themselves are advancing the school’s reputation for academic excellence. Most ranking sites rely on an opaque combination of reputation surveys and misuesed performance metrics. Influence, as measured by our InfluenceRanking engine, provides a ranking that is more insulated from manipulation, and more reflective of real-world educational outcomes.
Tuition + fees
$6K
Acceptance
31%
Graduation
89%
Student body
47K
Median SAT/ACT
1390/30
University of Florida’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Acceptance
56%
Graduation
82%
Student body
44K
Median SAT/ACT
1345/30
University of Washington’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$60K
Acceptance
20%
Graduation
89%
Student body
32K
Median SAT/ACT
1425/32
Boston University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
32%
Graduation
84%
Student body
40K
Median SAT/ACT
1270/28
Florida State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$62K
Acceptance
26%
Graduation
92%
Student body
13K
Median SAT/ACT
1420/32
Boston College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$60K
Acceptance
43%
Graduation
85%
Student body
21K
Median SAT/ACT
1375/31
George Washington University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Acceptance
48%
Graduation
87%
Student body
38K
Median SAT/ACT
1330/29
University of Georgia’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
51%
Graduation
87%
Student body
37K
Median SAT/ACT
1375/31
University of Maryland, College Park’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$53K
Acceptance
39%
Graduation
79%
Student body
12K
Median SAT/ACT
1300/29
American University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$57K
Acceptance
77%
Graduation
71%
Student body
23K
Median SAT/ACT
1290/28
Drexel University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Minors:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Acceptance
80%
Graduation
72%
Student body
35K
Median SAT/ACT
1210/27
University of Alabama’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Minors:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Acceptance
45%
Graduation
74%
Student body
60K
Median SAT/ACT
1255/27
University of Central Florida’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Undergraduate Certificates
Tuition + fees
$16K
Acceptance
92%
Graduation
82%
Student body
20K
Median SAT/ACT
1290/27
Miami University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$13K
Acceptance
89%
Graduation
72%
Student body
31K
Median SAT/ACT
1215/27
George Mason University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Acceptance
67%
Graduation
51%
Student body
14K
Median SAT/ACT
1144/23
University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
58%
Graduation
67%
Student body
48K
Median SAT/ACT
1195/25
Florida International University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
37%
Graduation
76%
Student body
34K
Median SAT/ACT
1215/25
San Diego State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Special Focus:
Tuition + fees
$29K
Acceptance
39%
Graduation
64%
Student body
8K
Median SAT/ACT
1205/24
Howard University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$23K
Acceptance
50%
Graduation
54%
Student body
75K
Median SAT/ACT
1150/24
Liberty University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
All available online except Advanced Investigative Studies
Tuition + fees
$6K
Acceptance
91%
Graduation
54%
Student body
24K
Median SAT/ACT
1125/22
Georgia Southern University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
67%
Graduation
39%
Student body
5K
Median SAT/ACT
1155/21
University of Alaska Fairbanks’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
BA Criminal Justice
Tuition + fees
$52K
Acceptance
48%
Graduation
82%
Student body
10K
Median SAT/ACT
1250/28
Texas Christian University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Acceptance
85%
Graduation
65%
Student body
39K
Median SAT/ACT
1235/25
University of Arizona’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Acceptance
95%
Graduation
49%
Student body
19K
Median SAT/ACT
1110/21
Portland State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Acceptance
33%
Graduation
55%
Student body
8K
Median SAT/ACT
1095/21
Florida A&M University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Areas of focus:
Go to all Research Universities for Criminal Justice programs
If you want to know more about criminal justice, then check out our related content:
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