If you plan on majoring in criminology, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #80 in the country in terms of popularity. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 4 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Criminology Schools in Wisconsin ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 403 degrees in criminology to qualified students.
Your choice of criminology school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Criminology 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 Criminology Schools in Wisconsin list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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.
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 criminology degrees they offer, see the list below.
Any student who is interested in criminology needs to look into Marquette University. Located in the large city of Milwaukee, Marquette is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #114 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means Marquette is a great university overall.
There were roughly 81 criminology students who graduated with this degree at Marquette in the most recent data year. Students who receive their degree from the criminology program make about $35,650 for their early career.
It's hard to beat University of Wisconsin - Whitewater if you want to pursue a degree in criminology. UW - Whitewater is a large public university located in the town of Whitewater. A Best Colleges rank of #400 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means UW - Whitewater is a great university overall.
There were approximately 58 criminology students who graduated with this degree at UW - Whitewater in the most recent data year. Students who receive their degree from the criminology program earn around $40,060 for their early career.
University of Wisconsin - River Falls is a wonderful choice for students pursuing a degree in criminology. Located in the town of River Falls, UW - River Falls is a public university with a moderately-sized student population. This university ranks 26th out of 46 schools for overall quality in the state of Wisconsin.
There were roughly 39 criminology students who graduated with this degree at UW - River Falls in the most recent data year. Those criminology students who get their degree from University of Wisconsin - River Falls earn $6,075 more than the typical criminology graduate.
University of Wisconsin - Stout is a great choice for students pursuing a degree in criminology. UW - Stout is a medium-sized public university located in the town of Menomonie. This university ranks 29th out of 46 schools for overall quality in the state of Wisconsin.
There were roughly 20 criminology students who graduated with this degree at UW - Stout in the most recent data year. Those criminology students who get their degree from University of Wisconsin - Stout receive $9,966 more than the average criminology grad.
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).