If you pursue a degree in criminal justice, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #27 most popular program in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 8 schools in Tennessee to determine which ones were the best for criminal justice students pursuing a degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 759 degrees in criminal justice annually.
Your choice of criminal justice school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. In order to come up with a best overall ranking for criminal justice schools, we combine our degree-level rankings, weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each level.
You may want to choose one of the degree levels below to find the schools of most interest to you.
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 Schools in Tennessee.
If you'd like to restrict your choices to just one part of the country, you can filter this list by location.
In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat.
Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.
The schools below may not offer all types of criminal justice degrees so you may want to filter by degree level first. However, they are great for the degree levels they do offer.
Every student who is interested in criminal justice has to take a look at Middle Tennessee State University. Middle Tennessee State University is a very large public university located in the city of Murfreesboro. A Best Colleges rank of #1036 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means Middle Tennessee State University is a great university overall.
There were roughly 139 criminal justice students who graduated with this degree at Middle Tennessee State University in the most recent data year.
Every student pursuing a degree in criminal justice needs to look into The University of Tennessee - Chattanooga. Located in the medium-sized city of Chattanooga, UT Chattanooga is a public university with a large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #959 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means UT Chattanooga is a great university overall.
There were about 92 criminal justice students who graduated with this degree at UT Chattanooga in the most recent year we have data available.
Any student pursuing a degree in criminal justice needs to look into University of Memphis. UofM is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Memphis. A Best Colleges rank of #807 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means UofM is a great university overall.
There were roughly 113 criminal justice students who graduated with this degree at UofM in the most recent data year.
It is difficult to beat Bethel University if you wish to pursue a degree in criminal justice. Bethel is a small private not-for-profit university located in the town of McKenzie. This university ranks 24th out of 41 schools for overall quality in the state of Tennessee.
There were about 14 criminal justice students who graduated with this degree at Bethel in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the city of Johnson City, ETSU is a public university with a large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #802 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means ETSU is a great university overall.
There were approximately 95 criminal justice students who graduated with this degree at ETSU in the most recent year we have data available.
Austin Peay State University is a medium-sized public university located in the medium-sized city of Clarksville. This university ranks 25th out of 41 colleges for overall quality in the state of Tennessee.
There were about 92 criminal justice students who graduated with this degree at Austin Peay State University in the most recent year we have data available.
Tennessee State University is a moderately-sized public university located in the city of Nashville. This university ranks 29th out of 41 schools for overall quality in the state of Tennessee.
There were approximately 53 criminal justice students who graduated with this degree at Tennessee State University in the most recent year we have data available.
UT Martin is a medium-sized public university located in the remote town of Martin. This university ranks 32nd out of 41 schools for overall quality in the state of Tennessee.
There were approximately 35 criminal justice students who graduated with this degree at UT Martin in the most recent data year.
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. In order to come up with a best overall ranking for criminal justice schools, we combine our degree-level rankings, weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each level.
