BestOnlineCollege.org is an advertising-supported website. Many of the school and program listings that appear on this site are from partners who compensate us, and this compensation may affect how, where, and in what order listings appear (such as featured placements). This compensation does not influence our editorial content, evaluations, or rankings, which are determined independently using publicly available data. We do not review or feature every school or program available in the marketplace. Our goal is to provide accurate, unbiased information so you can make informed decisions. Read our full Advertiser Disclosure.
Athens, Alabama has 5 accredited schools offering criminal justice programs, with tuition ranging from $10,024 to $27,153 per year for indexed programs. Athens has a population of about 32,587. In the Huntsville, AL metro area, the top-earning criminal justice-related role is Attorney at a median $133,220 annually (BLS OEWS, May 2025).
The accredited institutions listed below are the closest in our directory that offer criminal justice programs near Athens, ranked by BOC Score and straight-line distance from Athens city center. The list is rebuilt from federal IPEDS data on every site update.
Every school list on this site is ordered by the BOC Score, computed from the most recent school-level data published by the U.S. Department of Education (College Scorecard and IPEDS). To qualify, a school must be currently operating and accredited by an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. Each eligible school is then scored on five measures, percentile-ranked against schools at the same credential level:
Schools without enough outcome data appear after ranked schools, without a score. On this page, schools are ordered by distance from Athens. Advertising never affects these rankings. Read the full methodology.
Source:Accreditor: Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on CollegesIPEDSCollege Scorecard
Source: IPEDS / College Scorecard (2023 cohort). Browse all Alabama schools on the Alabama criminal justice page.
Athens is part of the Huntsville, AL metro area (BLS area code 26620). Where MSA-level wages are published, the table below shows MSA medians; otherwise it falls back to Alabama statewide.
| Occupation | Median Wage | Source | COL-Adjusted (US=100) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attorney | $133,220 | Huntsville, AL | $143,093 |
| Judge or Magistrate | $52,850 | AL statewide | $56,767 |
| Police Supervisor | $99,090 | Huntsville, AL | $106,434 |
| Detective or Criminal Investigator | $91,230 | Huntsville, AL | $97,991 |
| Police or Sheriff’s Patrol Officer | $64,550 | Huntsville, AL | $69,334 |
| Correctional Officer | $44,800 | Huntsville, AL | $48,120 |
| Probation Officer | $59,420 | Huntsville, AL | $63,824 |
| Forensic Science Technician | $59,560 | AL statewide | $63,974 |
| Paralegal or Legal Assistant | $46,580 | Huntsville, AL | $50,032 |
| Information Security Analyst | $130,330 | Huntsville, AL | $139,989 |
Source: BLS, May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes wage data at the metro (MSA) and state level – not by individual city.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Regional Price Parity (US=100) | 93.1 (below U.S. average) | BEA RPP 2024 |
Our directory has 5 accredited schools offering criminal justice programs near Athens. The closest is Athens State University in Athens, AL (1.8 miles), and the farthest of the schools shown is The University of Tennessee Southern (29.2 miles). 4 of the highlighted schools are flagged as offering distance education.
Based on BLS OEWS May 2025 wage data, the top-paying criminal justice-related roles near Athens are: Attorney ($133,220), Information Security Analyst ($130,330), Police Supervisor ($99,090). These reflect MSA-level medians where published, with Alabama statewide fallback for occupations not reported at the metro level.
Madison, AL is 11.8 miles from Athens and has its own set of local criminal justice programs – see the city’s page. For online programs, distance matters less; for hybrid or in-person formats, comparing both can help.
Confirm institutional accreditation via the U.S. Department of Education database (U.S. Dept. of Education database), and check for any program-specific accreditation listed by the school.
Compare every accredited online degree program with city-level data for Athens:
Data verified: August 31, 2026. Salary, employment, and tuition figures on this page are sourced from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (OEWS May 2025; Employment Projections 2024–2034) and the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard (2023 cohort). The source agency and data year are cited inline with every statistic.
