If you pursue a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #7 most popular program in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 52 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 7,569 bachelor's degrees in criminal justice & corrections during the 2021-2022 academic year.
Choosing a Great Criminal Justice & Corrections School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of criminal justice & corrections for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality criminal justice program can vary widely even among the top schools. 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 make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
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 bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to criminal justice & corrections students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of criminal justice & corrections students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How much debt criminal justice & corrections students go into to obtain their bachelor's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
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 bachelor's degree.
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 Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study Criminal Justice & Corrections in the Southwest Region
The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
10 Top Southwest Region Schools for a Bachelor's in Criminal Justice
It is hard to beat Arizona State University - Tempe if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. ASU - Tempe is a fairly large public university located in the medium-sized city of Tempe.
Criminal Justice & Corrections bachelor's degree recipients from Arizona State University - Tempe receive an earnings boost of approximately $4,767 above the average earnings of criminal justice & corrections graduates.
It's hard to beat Arizona State University - Skysong if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the city of Scottsdale, ASU - Skysong is a public university with a very large student population.
Those criminal justice & corrections students who get their bachelor's degree from Arizona State University - Skysong receive $4,767 more than the standard criminal justice student.
It is difficult to beat Sam Houston State University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the town of Huntsville, SHSU is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the criminal justice program earn about $37,792 in their early career salary.
University of Phoenix - Arizona is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. UOPX - Arizona is a very large private for-profit university located in the large city of Phoenix.
Those criminal justice & corrections students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Phoenix - Arizona make $10,567 more than the standard criminal justice grad.
Located in the large city of Phoenix, Grand Canyon University is a private for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Criminal Justice & Corrections bachelor's degree recipients from Grand Canyon University earn a boost of around $3,760 over the average earnings of criminal justice & corrections graduates.
Here are some additional great schools for Criminal Justice & Corrections students in the Southwest Region that almost earned our Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region award.
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 bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality criminal justice program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
