Associate Degrees in Criminal Justice & Corrections

Among those who recently graduated from the schools offering this degree, the majority were women, and 57% were students from underrepresented racial-ethnic groups. Also, 0.5% of criminal justice graduates were international students.

 

Education Levels of Criminal Justice Majors

In 2021-2022, 28,100 associate degrees were awarded to criminal justice majors. The following table shows the number of diplomas awarded in criminal justice at each degree level.

Education Level	Number of Grads
Bachelor’s Degree	51,219
Associate Degree	28,100
Basic Certificate	16,940
Undergraduate Certificate	5,317

Earnings of Criminal Justice Majors With Associate Degrees

The median salary for graduates holding an associate degree in criminal justice is $29,859. This number may vary for a lot of reasons. For instance, you may decide to move to a location where people with your degree are rare and make more money. To get a better picture, earnings for this category of people can range from a low of $26,009 to a high of $35,937.

Student Debt

The median student debt for graduates holding an associate degree in criminal justice is $14,000. The school you go to and how long it takes you to graduate, among other things, can cause this number to vary. The chart below shows the range of accumulated debt loads. On the high side of the range, $20,000 is the debt load, and the debt load on the low side is $11,000.

The median monthly payment of a criminal justice graduate with a 10-year repayment plan is $119.

Student Diversity

More women than men pursue their associate degree in criminal justice. About 54.2% of graduates with this degree are female.

Gender	Number of Grads
Men	12,869
Women	15,231

The racial-ethnic distribution of criminal justice associate degree students is as follows:

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Grads
Asian	814
Black or African American	3,689
Hispanic or Latino	10,163
White	10,946
International Students	128
Other Races/Ethnicities	2,360

Criminal Justice Focus Areas

Major	Annual Degrees Awarded
Criminal Justice	10,992
Criminal Justice Studies	7,460
Criminal Justice & Police Science	7,363
Other Corrections & Criminal Justice	1,262
Corrections	519

Related Majors

Below are some popular majors that are similar to criminal justice that offer associate degrees.

Major	Annual Degrees Awarded
Fire Protection	4,148
	850
Homeland Security	462
Other Homeland Security	158

References

*The racial-ethnic minority student count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the percentage of racial-ethnic minorities.

• College Factual
• National Center for Education Statistics
• O*NET Online
• Bureau of Labor Statistics

More about our data sources and methodologies.