2025 Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Schools in District of Columbia
4Colleges in District of Columbia
294Criminal Justice Degrees Awarded
$40,755Avg Early-Career Salary
If you pursue a degree in criminal justice & corrections, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #7 most popular program 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 4 schools in District of Columbia to determine which ones were the best for criminal justice & corrections students pursuing a degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 294 degrees in criminal justice & corrections annually.
Choosing a Great Criminal Justice & Corrections School
Your choice of criminal justice & corrections 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 & corrections 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.
Pick Your Criminal Justice & Corrections Degree Level
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Schools in District of Columbia ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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 & Corrections in District of Columbia
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.
Top District of Columbia Schools in Criminal Justice
George Washington University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a degree in criminal justice & corrections. GWU is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Washington. A Best Colleges rank of #25 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means GWU is a great university overall.
There were about 86 criminal justice & corrections students who graduated with this degree at GWU in the most recent data year. Degree recipients from the criminal justice & corrections program at George Washington University earn $10,501 more than the typical college graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
It is hard to beat American University if you wish to pursue a degree in criminal justice & corrections. The American University is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Washington. A Best Colleges rank of #61 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means The American University is a great university overall.
There were approximately 104 criminal justice & corrections students who graduated with this degree at The American University in the most recent data year. Those criminal justice & corrections students who get their degree from American University receive $2,622 more than the standard criminal justice student.
Howard University is a wonderful choice for students pursuing a degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the city of Washington, Howard is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population. This university ranks 5th out of 7 schools for overall quality in the state of District of Columbia.
There were about 34 criminal justice & corrections students who graduated with this degree at Howard in the most recent year we have data available. Graduates who receive their degree from the criminal justice program make an average of $27,801 in the first couple years of their career.
Trinity Washington University is a wonderful choice for students pursuing a degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the large city of Washington, Trinity College is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population. This university ranks 6th out of 7 schools for overall quality in the state of District of Columbia.
There were approximately 15 criminal justice & corrections students who graduated with this degree at Trinity College in the most recent data year. Criminal Justice & Corrections degree recipients from Trinity Washington University get an earnings boost of around $6,630 over the typical earnings of criminal justice & corrections graduates.
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).