2024 Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Master's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region

Ranked #30 in popularity, criminal justice & corrections is one of the most sought-after master's degree programs in the nation. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.

In 2024, College Factual analyzed 28 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Master's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 610 master's degrees in criminal justice & corrections during the 2020-2021 academic year.

Jump to one of the following sections: * Our Methodology

• Best Master’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Criminal Justice & Corrections School for Your Master's Degree

Your choice of criminal justice & corrections for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality criminal justice program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:

Quality Overall Is Important

A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.

Average Earnings

To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their master's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their master's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.

Other Factors We Consider

In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:

• Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to criminal justice & corrections students as compared to other majors.
• Major Demand - The number of criminal justice & corrections students who choose to seek a master's degree at the school.
• Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
• Student Debt - How much debt criminal justice & corrections students go into to obtain their master's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
• Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized criminal justice & corrections related body.

Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for criminal justice & corrections students working on their master's degree.

One Size Does Not Fit All

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 Master's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region list to help you make the college decision.

Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Criminal Justice & Corrections in the Great Lakes Region

Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a master's degree in criminal justice & corrections.

10 Top Great Lakes Region Schools for a Master's in Criminal Justice

1

University of Chicago
Chicago, IL

23 Annual Graduates

$99,684 Median Starting Salary

University of Chicago is a good option for students pursuing a master's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the large city of Chicago, UChicago is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.

Criminal Justice & Corrections master's degree recipients from University of Chicago receive an earnings boost of around $51,602 above the average earnings of criminal justice & corrections graduates.

More information about a master’s in criminal justice & corrections from University of Chicago

2

University of Cincinnati - Main Campus
Cincinnati, OH

111 Annual Graduates

$44,679 Median Starting Salary

University of Cincinnati - Main Campus is a good choice for individuals interested in a master's degree in criminal justice & corrections. UC is a very large public university located in the large city of Cincinnati.

Students who graduate with their master's from the criminal justice program report average early career income of $44,679.

More information about a master’s in criminal justice & corrections from University of Cincinnati - Main Campus

3

Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI

20 Annual Graduates

$53,283 Median Starting Salary

Michigan State University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in criminal justice & corrections. Located in the city of East Lansing, Michigan State is a public university with a fairly large student population.

Those criminal justice & corrections students who get their master's degree from Michigan State University make $5,201 more than the standard criminal justice grad.

More information about a master’s in criminal justice & corrections from Michigan State University

4

Xavier University
Cincinnati, OH

33 Annual Graduates

Every student who is interested in a master's degree in criminal justice & corrections has to take a look at Xavier University. Xavier is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the city of Cincinnati.More information about a master’s in criminal justice & corrections from Xavier University

5

Indiana University - Bloomington
Bloomington, IN

2 Annual Graduates

IU Bloomington is a fairly large public university located in the city of Bloomington.More information about a master’s in criminal justice & corrections from Indiana University - Bloomington

5

Lewis University
Romeoville, IL

48 Annual Graduates

Located in the suburb of Romeoville, Lewis is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.More information about a master’s in criminal justice & corrections from Lewis University

6

Loyola University Chicago
Chicago, IL

9 Annual Graduates

Located in the city of Chicago, Loyola Chicago is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.More information about a master’s in criminal justice & corrections from Loyola University Chicago

7

University of Illinois at Chicago
Chicago, IL

11 Annual Graduates

UIC is a fairly large public university located in the city of Chicago.More information about a master’s in criminal justice & corrections from University of Illinois at Chicago

8

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8

Purdue University Global
West Lafayette, IN

$39,070 Median Starting Salary

Located in the city of West Lafayette, Purdue University Global is a public university with a very large student population.

Master's students who receive their degree from the criminal justice program make about $39,070 in the first couple years of their career.

More information about a master’s in criminal justice & corrections from Purdue University Global

Best Criminal Justice & Corrections Colleges by State

Explore the best criminal justice & corrections schools for a specific state in the Great Lakes Region .

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Illinois	221	178
Michigan	211	77
Ohio	207	211
Indiana	191	101
Wisconsin	173	43

View All Rankings >

Rankings in Majors Related to Criminal Justice

Criminal Justice & Corrections is one of 4 different types of Homeland Security, Law Enforcement & Firefighting programs to choose from.

Criminal Justice Focus Areas

Major	Annual Graduates
Criminal Justice Studies	317
Criminal Justice	233
Other Corrections & Criminal Justice	37
Securities Services Administration/Management	23

Majors Similar to Criminal Justice

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Homeland Security	114
Fire Protection	108
Security Science and Technology	57
Other Homeland Security	44

Notes and References

• 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). More about our data sources and methodologies.