2024 Best Criminal Justice Associate Degree Schools in the Southwest Region
7
Colleges in the Southwest Region
345
Associate Degrees
Criminal Justice is of the hottest associate degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #10 most popular major in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
In 2024, College Factual analyzed 7 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Criminal Justice Associate Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 345 associate degrees in criminal justice during the 2020-2021 academic year.
What's on this page: * Our Methodology
Choosing a Great Criminal Justice School for Your Associate Degree
The criminal justice associate 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. 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 take this into account we consider a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a host of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
- Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to criminal justice students as compared to other majors.
- Major Demand - How many other criminal justice students want to attend this school to pursue a associate 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.
- Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized criminal justice related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for criminal justice students working on their associate degree.
One Size Does Not Fit All
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 Associate Degree Schools in the Southwest Region.