Criminal Justice & Corrections is of the hottest bachelor's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #7 most popular major in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 77 schools in the Great Lakes Region to determine which ones were the best for criminal justice & corrections students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 5,948 bachelor's degrees in criminal justice & corrections to qualified students.
Choosing a Great Criminal Justice & Corrections School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The criminal justice bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we include a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a collection of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of bachelor's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their bachelor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on criminal justice & corrections students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other criminal justice & corrections students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
Student Debt - How easy is it for criminal justice & corrections to pay back their student loans after receiving their bachelor's degree.
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.
More Ways to Rank Criminal Justice & Corrections Schools
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region list to help you make the college decision.
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.
Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study Criminal Justice & Corrections in the Great Lakes Region
Learn about the top ranked colleges and universities for criminal justice & corrections students seeking a a bachelor's degree. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
15 Top Great Lakes Region Schools for a Bachelor's in Criminal Justice
It's difficult to beat Union Institute & University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Union is a small private not-for-profit university located in the city of Cincinnati.
Bachelor's recipients from the criminal justice & corrections degree program at Union Institute & University earn $82,961 more than the standard college grad with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Michigan State University is a great option for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Michigan State is a fairly large public university located in the city of East Lansing.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the criminal justice program report average early career earnings of $40,390.
University of Cincinnati - Main Campus is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the large city of Cincinnati, UC is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the criminal justice program report average early career earnings of $40,557.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in criminal justice & corrections has to look into Indiana University - Bloomington. Located in the city of Bloomington, IU Bloomington is a public university with a very large student population.
After graduation, criminal justice bachelor's recipients typically earn an average of $35,572 at the beginning of their careers.
Purdue University Global is a fairly large public university located in the small city of West Lafayette.
Those criminal justice & corrections students who get their bachelor's degree from Purdue University Global make $4,709 more than the standard criminal justice student.
Located in the distant town of Adrian, Siena Heights University is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the criminal justice & corrections program at Siena Heights University get $25,734 more than the typical college grad with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Ferris is a moderately-sized public university located in the town of Big Rapids.
Criminal Justice & Corrections bachelor's degree recipients from Ferris State University get an earnings boost of approximately $3,622 over the typical income of criminal justice & corrections graduates.
Rest of the Top Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region
Honorable Mentions
Here are some additional great schools for Criminal Justice & Corrections students in the Great Lakes Region that almost earned our Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes 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.
The criminal justice bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
