If you pursue a associate degree in criminal justice & corrections, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #4 most popular program in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 3 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Associate Degree Schools in Oregon ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 102 associate degrees in criminal justice & corrections during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Choosing a Great Criminal Justice & Corrections School for Your Associate Degree
Your choice of criminal justice & corrections for getting your associate degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. 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 take this into account we include a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a combination of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of associate graduates during the early years of their career. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their associate degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on criminal justice & corrections students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of criminal justice & corrections students who choose to seek a associate degree at the school.
Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
Student Debt - How easy is it for criminal justice & corrections to pay back their student loans after receiving their associate degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized criminal justice & corrections related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for criminal justice & corrections students working on their associate degree.
More Ways to Rank Criminal Justice & Corrections Schools
The criminal justice 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 Criminal Justice & Corrections Associate Degree Schools in Oregon.
Best Schools for Associate Students to Study Criminal Justice & Corrections in Oregon
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections.
Top Oregon Schools for an Associate in Criminal Justice
It is hard to beat Chemeketa Community College if you want to pursue an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the large suburb of Salem, Chemeketa Community College is a public college with a medium-sized student population.
Students who graduate with their associate from the criminal justice program report average early career income of $33,406.
It is difficult to beat Portland Community College if you want to pursue an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections. Portland Community College is a fairly large public college located in the large city of Portland.
Those criminal justice & corrections students who get their associate degree from Portland Community College receive $6,241 more than the standard criminal justice grad.
Every student pursuing a degree in an associate degree in criminal justice & corrections has to take a look at Central Oregon Community College. COCC is a small public college located in the medium-sized city of Bend.
After graduating, criminal justice associate recipients usually earn an average of $37,992 in the first five years of their career.
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.
Your choice of criminal justice & corrections for getting your associate degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors: