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Lake Charles, Louisiana has 5 accredited schools offering criminal justice programs, with tuition ranging from $1,770 to $16,402 per year for indexed programs. Lake Charles has a population of about 81,679. Median household income is $56,864 (Census ACS 2023, 5-year). About 29.4% of adults 25+ hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. In the Lake Charles, LA metro area, the top-earning criminal justice-related role is Attorney at a median $101,690 annually (BLS OEWS, May 2025).
The accredited institutions listed below are the closest in our directory that offer criminal justice programs near Lake Charles, ranked by BOC Score and straight-line distance from Lake Charles 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 Lake Charles. Advertising never affects these rankings. Read the full methodology.
Source:IPEDSCollege Scorecard
Source:IPEDSCollege Scorecard
Source: IPEDS / College Scorecard (2023 cohort). Browse all Louisiana schools on the Louisiana criminal justice page.
Lake Charles is part of the Lake Charles, LA metro area (BLS area code 29340). Where MSA-level wages are published, the table below shows MSA medians; otherwise it falls back to Louisiana statewide.
| Occupation | Median Wage | Source | COL-Adjusted (US=100) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attorney | $101,690 | Lake Charles, LA | $118,382 |
| Judge or Magistrate | $83,040 | LA statewide | $96,671 |
| Police Supervisor | $72,230 | Lake Charles, LA | $84,086 |
| Detective or Criminal Investigator | $58,240 | Lake Charles, LA | $67,800 |
| Police or Sheriff’s Patrol Officer | $56,290 | Lake Charles, LA | $65,530 |
| Correctional Officer | $39,960 | Lake Charles, LA | $46,519 |
| Probation Officer | $62,910 | LA statewide | $73,236 |
| Forensic Science Technician | N/A | LA statewide | – |
| Paralegal or Legal Assistant | $48,970 | Lake Charles, LA | $57,008 |
| Information Security Analyst | $92,990 | LA statewide | $108,254 |
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Population | 81,679 | Census ACS 2023 5-yr (B01003) |
| Median household income | $56,864 | Census ACS 2023 5-yr (B19013) |
| Adults 25+ with bachelor’s+ | 29.4% | Census ACS 2023 5-yr (B15003) |
| Regional Price Parity (US=100) | 85.9 (below U.S. average) | BEA RPP 2024 |
Accredited schools offering criminal justice programs near Lake Charles are listed on this page, ranked by BOC Score and distance from the city center. The list is rebuilt from federal IPEDS and College Scorecard data on every site update, so it stays current as programs open and close.
Based on BLS OEWS May 2025 wage data, the top-paying criminal justice-related roles near Lake Charles are: Attorney ($101,690), Information Security Analyst ($92,990), Judge or Magistrate ($83,040). These reflect MSA-level medians where published, with Louisiana statewide fallback for occupations not reported at the metro level.
Sulphur, LA is 8.6 miles from Lake Charles 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.
Lake Charles’s median household income of $56,864 (Census ACS 2023) is one input. Online programs let students stay in Lake Charles while attending lower-cost out-of-state schools, and Louisiana public universities often offer reduced in-state online tuition.
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 Lake Charles:
Data verified: July 23, 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.
Back to Best Online Criminal Justice Programs in Louisiana (2026)
