Bachelor’s Degrees in Criminal Justice & Corrections

Among those who recently graduated from the schools offering this degree, the majority were women, and 52% were students from underrepresented racial-ethnic groups. Also, 1.0% of criminal justice graduates were international students.

 

Education Levels of Criminal Justice Majors

During the 2021-2022 academic year, 51,219 students earned their bachelor's degree in criminal justice. 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 Bachelor’s Degrees

The median salary for graduates holding a bachelor's degree in criminal justice is $34,100. However, this can depend on a number of factors, such as where you live and the number of years experience you have. To get a better picture, earnings for this category of people can range from a low of $31,196 to a high of $37,422.

Student Debt

The median student debt for graduates holding a bachelor's degree in criminal justice is $25,000. 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, $27,000 is the debt load, and the debt load on the low side is $20,200.

The median monthly payment of a criminal justice graduate with a 10-year repayment plan is $280.

Student Diversity

More women than men pursue their bachelor's degree in criminal justice. About 57.1% of graduates with this degree are female.

Gender	Number of Grads
Men	21,998
Women	29,221

The racial-ethnic distribution of criminal justice bachelor’s degree students is as follows:

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Grads
Asian	1,355
Black or African American	8,918
Hispanic or Latino	13,877
White	22,217
International Students	522
Other Races/Ethnicities	4,330

Criminal Justice Focus Areas

Major	Annual Degrees Awarded
Criminal Justice Studies	31,240
Criminal Justice	13,825
Criminal Justice & Police Science	2,819
Other Corrections & Criminal Justice	1,762
	752

Related Majors

Below are some popular majors that are similar to criminal justice that offer bachelor’s degrees.

Major	Annual Degrees Awarded
	3,330
Homeland Security	2,819
Fire Protection	1,386
Other Homeland Security	796

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.