Methodology and Sourcing

We currently list 495 programs at 150 schools (31 of them formal concentrations inside broader degrees), and record 256 related offerings we checked and did not list — certificates, minors, academy training and degrees with only a relevant elective — on each school page with the reason. Coverage is partial and growing: a program missing from the directory has not been verified yet. We do not claim complete coverage of US criminal justice education.

Which schools are eligible

A school is listed when it holds a current institutional accreditation from an accreditor recognized by the U.S. Department of Education, checked in its Database of Accredited Postsecondary Institutions and Programs (DAPIP), and offers at least one eligible degree. Candidate schools are discovered from federal IPEDS data (programs offered and awards conferred under criminal justice, criminology, forensic and homeland security CIP codes at associate, bachelor's, master's and research-doctorate level), FEPAC's accredited-program list, state and institutional catalogs, and systematic web searches. A CIP code or a third-party listing is only a lead: a school is listed after its own pages are researched and the program is shown to exist and to fit the scope.

Which programs are eligible

Concentrations keep their real degree. A Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a forensic psychology concentration is shown as “BS in Psychology — Forensic Psychology Concentration”, never as a forensic psychology degree. We create a separate record for a concentration only when the school awards a separately titled degree.

Minimum for publication: verified institution identity, an offering that fits the scope, an established campus or delivery arrangement, official evidence that it exists, and no sign it is discontinued. Missing optional details (tuition, admissions, deadlines, accommodation) never exclude or bury a listing; they show as “not published” or “not confirmed”, stored as unknown rather than “free” or “closed”.

Subjects

The twelve subjects are not interchangeable. A program is mapped to a subject only from official curriculum evidence — a named concentration or track, or the degree's own required core — never a topic covered in one or two courses. A criminal justice degree with a forensic concentration is not presented as a laboratory forensic science degree: forensic programs carry a type (laboratory science, crime scene, digital forensics, forensic psychology, criminal justice with forensic focus). “Criminal science” is a search phrase, not a degree category we invent.

Format, online delivery and attendance

Offered formats (campus, online, hybrid), online delivery type, campus visits, internship, laboratory sessions, live-session schedule and study intensity are separate fields, each with its own source. “Fully online” requires explicit wording; an online application or remote elective is not an online degree; online coursework does not imply “no campus visits” or “no internship”; unknown stays unknown. Online programs sit under the school's location, which is not a residency requirement, and state-authorization limits are shown where published. We do not list an online PhD without the university itself presenting it as online.

Accreditation and FEPAC

• Institutional accreditation comes from DAPIP and is required for every school listed.
• FEPAC program accreditation comes from FEPAC's own public list and is attached to a program only when school, degree level and program name match exactly; ambiguous matches go to an editor, never guessed. FEPAC covers forensic science programs only, not every criminal justice program, level, concentration or campus.

FEPAC accreditation is not required for a program to be listed, and its absence is not treated as a sign that a program is illegitimate.

How facts are verified

Every sourced fact carries the official page it came from, a verbatim quote and the date it was checked. A script re-fetches the page and looks for the quote; a fact whose quote is not found is never published, and sources that cannot be reached (bot walls are not circumvented) are marked as unverified. Older catalog PDFs alone do not establish current availability. Tuition keeps its basis (per credit, term, year or whole program), student category and year; totals are calculated only when supported and with the assumptions visible. Outcomes, salaries and licensure statements appear only when sourced and dated, and an academic degree is never presented as qualifying someone for a job, academy, certification or clearance.

Research coverage

We track a research matrix — subject × degree level × state — recording the discovery searches run, the candidate institutions, the verified programs, the places where no verified offering was found and the remaining gaps. The matrix is published in the repository documentation and summarized in the coverage report; empty cells are never filled in to look complete, and we do not generate empty pages for cities without eligible institutions.

Best-college selections and ranking

We do not publish numerical rankings or scores. The Best Colleges pages are unranked editorial selections: each states its criteria, the data used, its limitations and a review date, lists qualifying schools or programs alphabetically, and is independent of sponsorship. Sponsored placements are labelled, sit in their own sections and never influence a selection or the order of results.

Data sources

Identity and location come from IPEDS (NCES); institutional accreditation from DAPIP; FEPAC status from FEPAC's list; program facts from each school's own program, catalog, admissions and tuition pages. Third-party directories and rankings are used only as leads and never as sources, and databases and descriptions are not copied wholesale.

Corrections

Found an error or a missing program? Use the correction form or tell us about a program. Corrections are checked against official pages before anything changes.