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Criminal justice

Most police departments will hire you without this degree. Two thirds of the people who finish it are doing work that never required one.

Written by the Sidequest team. Reviewed 2026-09-05.

Where it leads

Police officer, probation officer, paralegal, court clerk and security guard. A police officer earns $76,210 in the middle of the range and is the best paid of the five.

The week

About 45 hours a week all in, 15 of them in a lecture room and the rest reading on your own. Late in the degree a chunk of the week turns into a placement inside a real police department, court or prison.

What people earn four years after they finish
WEAKEST PROGRAMS$44,414TYPICAL$54,212TOP PROGRAMS$64,090

Where people end up

Police officer, probation officer, paralegal, court clerk, security guard. That is the list, and police work is the one the degree is really built around.

What four years give you that the 806 hours do not is the argument side of it: why crime happens, what a sentence does to the person it lands on, whether a policy worked. That is the part that matters if you want to end up running a department rather than working a shift in one.

The people who have done it are consistent about where it does not reach. If you want the FBI, a courtroom, or anything federal, they name accounting, a science, or computer security instead.

What a week is like

You take four to six classes at once, which comes out to about 15 credit hours a semester. It is that same load every semester for four years: 120 credits, eight semesters, done.

About 15 of those hours are spent sitting in class. The other 30 are work you do on your own, two hours behind every hour you spend in a room. Call it 45 hours a week.

It is spread across seven days rather than stacked into five, so you can keep your evenings or you can keep your weekends, not usually both. What it does not leave is much slack in the weeks when two big things land on the same day.

A waking week is about 112 hours. This is the share of it the degree takes.

  • In class15 hours
  • Work on your own30 hours
  • Yours67 hours

What those 45 hours are spent on.

  • with other people

    Big rooms, and the readable part of the degree: how a case travels from an arrest to a sentence, why people break laws, what a prison does to the people inside it.

  • on your own

    Chapters, real cases and studies, most weeks of most terms. It is a lot of pages and almost none of it is hard to follow, which is what people mean when they call this major an easy one.

  • on your ownthe hard part

    Two required courses, usually in your third year: how to run a study, and whether a difference between two numbers is real or luck. They are the only classes here that work like maths and they are where the grades drop.

  • on your own

    Short arguments with sources under them, about what should happen and what the evidence says happens. You write far more of these than you sit exams.

  • with other people

    Smaller rooms where a real case gets handed to the group and everyone disagrees about it. The disagreeing is the point.

  • Criminal justice classes19%
  • Research methods and statistics0%
  • Everything else you still have to take81%
  • Classes you pick yourself0%

One credit in five is criminal justice. The other four are general classes every student sits, and you pick none of them.

How much do you make?

This is the most popular degree in its own family and the worst paid one in it. Homeland security, the degree next door, pays $14,815 a year more, and a twentieth as many people finish it.

  1. Right out of college

    $55,378

    Four years out, the average criminal justice graduate earns $55,378, counting graduates in work and not back in school.

  2. Midway through

    $80,000

    Between 35 and 45, the average criminal justice graduate earns $80,000.

  3. At the height of it

    $115,120

    The best paid tenth of police officers earn $115,120.

Two thirds of the people who finish this degree end up in work that did not require a degree. That is the highest share of any major on this site.

The work it is built around does not ask for it either. Most departments hire police officers on a high school diploma, and the academy that does gate that work runs about 806 hours, roughly a fifth of the time this degree takes. What the degree buys is a higher starting step and faster promotions once you are in.

The five kinds of work criminal justice graduates land in, and what each pays in the middle.

  • Police officer$76,210
  • Probation officer$66,270
  • Paralegal, a lawyer's researcher$62,890
  • Court clerk$48,700
  • Security guard$38,020

Police work is the biggest of the five and the best paid of them.

The average money still owed on student loans

$24,750

The standard plan clears it in ten years.

Is this you?

Nothing in this degree is hard to read, and the people who did it say so themselves, several of them as a warning. There is no single class that clears the room the way an engineering degree has one. What there is instead is a rule that catches you quietly: every course that counts toward the major has to be passed at a C or better, so one bad term in an easy class still costs you the class. Then research methods and statistics arrive in your third year and work nothing like the rest of it.

Tap any that sound like you.

This is probably you if

Probably not you if

What people who did it say

  • MYOS1634

    College Confidential, November 2019

    "It's a pipeline to work in law enforcement or corrections (polie officer, etc). It's considered very easy and vocational. If you want a job with the FBI or any 'big' agency, or if you want to go to law school, the degree you want is either cybersecurity or data science..."

  • blossom

    College Confidential, January 2022

    "My city does not require a college degree to become a police officer- but someone with a degree starts at a higher salary which escalates faster, and makes the person eligible for various promotions on faster timing."

  • twoinanddone

    College Confidential, January 2022

    "I don't think it is a good choice unless you want to work as a cop. If you want to work in investigations, I think a science would be better. Want to work for the FBI? Accounting."

  • itsgettingreal21

    College Confidential, January 2022

    "Criminal justice as a major is a waste of time for a 4-year degree, imo. If a student wants law enforcement, they should get an associates in criminal justice or a at least go to a very inexpensive college."

Questions people ask

Is a criminal justice degree worth it?
It is worth it for one thing in particular: starting a police or probation career a pay step up and moving faster once you are in. Outside that, two thirds are doing work that never required a degree, and the neighbouring degrees in its own family all pay more.
What can you do with a criminal justice degree?
Police officer, probation officer, court clerk, security guard, and paralegal, which is the person who does a lawyer's research and paperwork. Police work pays the most of the five, $76,210 in the middle of the range.
Do you need a criminal justice degree to be a police officer?
Almost nowhere. Most departments hire on a high school diploma and train you at an academy that runs about 806 hours. Minnesota is the exception and asks for a two year degree or better before you can sit the licence exam.
Is criminal justice a good major for law school?
It is one of the four most common majors people apply with and the one that arrives with the lowest average entrance test score. If law school is the plan, a major that makes you read hard things and argue in writing serves you better.
Is criminal justice a hard major?
The reading is not hard, and people who did it say that themselves. Research methods and statistics in your third year are the two that are, and every course in the major has to be passed at a C or better.

Where these numbers come from

See the other majors