2025 Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Master's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region
Ranked #30 in popularity,
criminal justice & corrections is one of the most sought-after master's degree programs in the nation. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 19 schools in the Southwest Region to determine which ones were the best for criminal justice & corrections students pursuing a master's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 1,071 master's degrees in criminal justice & corrections to qualified students.
What's on this page: * Our Methodology
Choosing a Great Criminal Justice & Corrections School for Your Master's Degree
The criminal justice master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. 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
The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we include a school's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a host of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
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 master's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their master's 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 - How many other criminal justice & corrections students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
- 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 master's 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 schools for criminal justice & corrections students working on their master's degree.
More Ways to Rank Criminal Justice & Corrections Schools
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Master's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.