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| CRIMINAL JUSTICE PROGRAM |
We reviewed 107 online criminal justice programs and selected the four best programs for a bachelor's degree
This all started by wanting to answer the question: “What’s the best online criminal justice program?” To do this, we began on the bachelor’s level and explored every available program offered online. Over 40 professors then helped us create an original methodology used to narrow our list of 107 programs down to the top four in the nation. And to tie all of this together, there was great emphasis placed on transparency and the explanations behind our thought process—with the goal to have anyone be able to follow along and understand why certain programs outperformed others.
Everything presented here was carefully researched to be the most accurate and truthful as possible. Our team spent hundreds of hours verifying every data point with universities, collaborating with department professors to better understand their program and the discipline, and constructing an easy to understand methodology.
You’ll find the most important data and reviews in the navigation section called “Bachelor’s Rankings” (look at the top of the page). In that section you’ll see who performed the best, who were the worst, along with explanations for the results. We cover everything else in the “Advice” section, and also don’t miss out on reading the results of our professor surveys.
Want to jump right in and see what program came out on top? Just continue reading below.
The highest scoring program
Our #1 program is Washington State University: We loved how the program is a part of their Global Campus, which provides online students with exclusive career fairs and access to career consultants. Their faculty is one of the best we reviewed—led by Craig Hemmens, who served as President of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and includes successful police chiefs and award winning criminal law scholars. To top it off, the entire online campus at WSU won the 2013 Sloan Consortium award for Quality Online Education. Although students pay a relatively steep $570 per credit to attend (this is above the $365 median cost of online criminal justice programs), we think this is money well spent.
#1 Washington State University (Pullman, WA)
Tuition: $570/credit (for both in-state and out-of-state)
Department Website
WSU was the only program to score perfectly on our evaluation
And when we picked up the phone to discuss their program, we spoke with advisor Emily Chandler. Emily provided us with the most impressive phone response out of all the programs, informing us that the online degree program is taught by the exact same faculty, and uses the same curriculum, as the on-campus one.