graduate degree

[ffdpsoldier]

i want to get a MS or MA in criminal justice, i wanted to know if anyone has recived an MA from any of the top 3, and the cost?
i sceen excelsior grad cost per credit was 250$ for military, has anyone gone this route and did it pay 100% of cost?
what is the overall experience with them?
eduacation quality?
overall easiness of courses?
any problems with the schools you have recieved?
how are the teachers? do they help, or just collect a check?
did the degree help in getting the job or career you wanted?

[dcan]

TESC tuition calculator

COSC tuition

EC tuition

BTW you may want to look at AMU. Clep101 clued me into it. Grad degrees there cost $11,700 total tuition and they have grad degrees in criminal justice, homeland security, security management, and tons more. By comparison it looks like TESC is right at about $20,000 for a graduate degree.

[ffdpsoldier]

Amu cost 325 per credit hour plus fees, so for each class a person would pay 225 or more per class. Excelsior or fort hayes might be the way ill go.

[dcan]

I'm not really finding $225 to be unreasonable for a graduate level class. That's $2,700 for an entire master's degree. But that's just me.

Only thing I've seen regarding Fort Hays was using them to launder Straighterline accounting classes. If you go there you may be able to give valuable info to the rest of us on how good their program is.

[ffdpsoldier]

Iam a full time student because of school and national guard and extra school and rotc stuff, I don't have the time for a job. But I don't want to get a loan and owe money when I'm done. So reducing cost helps.

[sanantone]

Are you trying to get a certain job in the military or the public sector? What do you want to do? An MA or MS in CJ isn't good for much. It might help you advance higher and faster in a law enforcement or correctional agency and you can teach at a community college or as an adjunct at a 4-year school, but that's about it. Anything else that requires a degree in CJ can be done with a bachelor's.

[ffdpsoldier]

it is a back up if I don't get active duty when I comission because its not up to us but the army if we go active or guard. So as a back up a ms in criminal justice will help with a. Job in the CIA or FBI, most jobs requires a MS in criminal justice and cons in homeland security

[Yenisei]

it is a back up if I don't get active duty when I comission because its not up to us but the army if we go active or guard. So as a back up a ms in criminal justice will help with a. Job in the CIA or FBI, most jobs requires a MS in criminal justice and cons in homeland security

That doesn't sound right to me- FBI would seem to me to prefer law and accounting degrees, and I am pretty sure a CJ would be useless to the CIA, which would especially want foreign language and scientific/technical skills. If the FBI or CIA is anywhere on your radar screen, I'd double check what they are looking for.

[dcan]

FBI lists Law Enforcement as a Critical Skill, but you first have to qualify in under one of five non-LE areas to apply as a Special Agent. Federal Bureau of Investigation

From my understanding CIA is pretty explicit about wanting a broad cross-section of people to apply with diverse backgrounds. https://www.cia.gov/careers/faq/index.html

CIA employees represent a wide variety of disciplines from an even broader mix of academic backgrounds and experience. Therefore, we don't recommend one academic track over another in general.

...

Having an undergraduate degree is not mandatory, but is highly recommended. Life experiences are taken into consideration. However, a standard requirement for overseas officers, intelligence analysts, and other non-clerical positions is a college degree, preferably an advanced degree.

CIA has a graduate studies program but it's not in LE. https://www.cia.gov/careers/student-oppo...adprograms

Our Graduate Studies Program looks for bright graduate students who are focusing on international affairs, languages, economics, geography, cartography, physical sciences and engineering. Other majors may be accepted on a case-by-case basis. Students selected for this program should be entering either their first or second year of graduate studies following this assignment.

Is there a particular type of position at FBI or CIA you are interested in? Foreign agents in CIA have to know a lot of specialized skills in language, interrogation, SERE, tradecraft, etc. Analysts will need advanced degrees in areas like economics, political science, etc. There's probably opportunities there though.

[sanantone]

Criminal Justice is the worst degree to get for the FBI. The FBI has a list of preferred degrees on their webpage. Everything that's not preferred gets dumped into the "diversified" pile. I've heard that 80% of FBI applicants have CJ degrees, so only the very top applicants will get picked out of that pool. Since you would be competing with psychology and other liberal arts/humanities majors in the diversified pool, your chances could be slim or greatly reduced with a CJ degree. The FBI has more than enough CJ majors and wants to have a diverse group of employees. Law enforcement is in their skills pile which means they are looking for people with law enforcement experience, not a law enforcement degree; your military experience will help though.

Federal Bureau of Investigation

The CIA only has a few positions that ask for a CJ degree or any degree. Most of their intelligence positions require that someone studied political science, international relations, national security studies (different from homeland security which isn't internationally focused), foreign area studies, regional studies, history (internationally focused), language, anthropology, cultural studies, economics, science, engineering, international business, IT, and other related subjects. Basically, they want someone who understands the culture and politics in other nations or someone who has the technical and mathematical knowledge to understand white collar crime, weapons, and cyber crime. This is why I'm starting a Master of Security Studies program at Angelo State University. As a Texas resident, the degree will cost me less than $11,000. I chose the regional studies concentration where I get to study Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. I'm hoping to learn a critical needs language, Persian/Farsi to be specific since it's Indo-European and has few irregulars. If you want to become an intelligence analyst for the FBI or any other agency, the same standards apply.

Take a look at the positions that interest you and see how many ask for a CJ degree. I'm not sure there are any at this time. I only see one intelligence position that will accept any major as long as you know a critical needs language.

https://www.cia.gov/careers/opportunitie...index.html

There are federal law enforcement agencies that do have a preference for CJ: US Marshals, ICE, and a couple of others.