2025 Best Criminal Justice Schools in North Carolina
9Colleges in North Carolina
379Criminal Justice Degrees Awarded
Criminal Justice is of the hottest degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #27 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.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 9 schools in North Carolina to determine which ones were the best for criminal justice students pursuing a degree. Combined, these schools handed out 379 degrees in criminal justice to qualified students.
Your choice of criminal justice school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Criminal Justice School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
You may want to choose one of the degree levels below to find the schools of most interest to you.
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 Schools in North Carolina list, to help you choose the best school for you.
More interested in schools in a specific area of the country? Filter this list by region or state.
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.
Best Schools for Criminal Justice in North Carolina
If you aren't interested in a particular degree level and want to know which schools are the overall best at delivering an education for the criminal justice degrees they offer, see the list below.
North Carolina Wesleyan College is one of the best schools in the country for getting a degree in criminal justice. North Carolina Wesleyan College is a small private not-for-profit college located in the city of Rocky Mount. A Best Colleges rank of #1110 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means North Carolina Wesleyan College is a great college overall.
There were approximately 107 criminal justice students who graduated with this degree at North Carolina Wesleyan College in the most recent data year.
It is hard to beat Wingate University if you want to pursue a degree in criminal justice. Wingate is a small private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Wingate. This university ranks 60th out of 93 colleges for overall quality in the state of North Carolina.
There were roughly 25 criminal justice students who graduated with this degree at Wingate in the most recent data year.
Gardner - Webb University is a wonderful choice for students interested in a degree in criminal justice. Gardner - Webb is a small private not-for-profit university located in the rural area of Boiling Springs. A Best Colleges rank of #1016 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means Gardner - Webb is a great university overall.
There were roughly 43 criminal justice students who graduated with this degree at Gardner - Webb in the most recent year we have data available.
Every student pursuing a degree in criminal justice has to check out Campbell University. Campbell is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the fringe town of Buies Creek. A Best Colleges rank of #1496 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means Campbell is a great university overall.
There were roughly 22 criminal justice students who graduated with this degree at Campbell in the most recent data year.
Located in the city of Durham, North Carolina Central University is a public university with a medium-sized student population. This university ranks 59th out of 93 schools for overall quality in the state of North Carolina.
There were roughly 22 criminal justice students who graduated with this degree at North Carolina Central University in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the rural area of Banner Elk, Lees - McRae College is a private not-for-profit college with a small student population. This college ranks 57th out of 93 schools for overall quality in the state of North Carolina.
There were roughly 29 criminal justice students who graduated with this degree at Lees - McRae College in the most recent year we have data available.
Mars Hill is a small private not-for-profit university located in the rural area of Mars Hill. This university ranks 86th out of 93 schools for overall quality in the state of North Carolina.
There were approximately 15 criminal justice students who graduated with this degree at Mars Hill in the most recent year we have data available.
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.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
Your choice of criminal justice school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Criminal Justice School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
