Criminal Justice and Corrections at Generations College

Generations College's Criminal Justice program lands at the bottom quartile nationally but performs closer to the middle of the pack in Illinois—a distinction that matters if you're comparing Chicago options. The $28,031 first-year salary falls about $3,400 below the state median, putting graduates roughly $10,000 behind what they'd earn starting at Rasmussen or Harper College. At the same time, the debt load here ($22,366) runs significantly higher than both state and national benchmarks, creating a challenging 0.80 debt-to-earnings ratio.

The big caveat: we're looking at fewer than 30 graduates, so these numbers could swing considerably with a different cohort. What's harder to overlook is the structural challenge—criminal justice associate's degrees generally start modest, and this program places graduates toward the lower end of that already-constrained range. With 78% of students receiving Pell grants, most families here can't afford to take on debt for below-average outcomes in this field.

If your child is set on criminal justice in the Chicago area, several community colleges deliver better starting salaries with less debt. Unless Generations offers unique scheduling flexibility or support services that justify the premium, this program represents a difficult financial proposition even accounting for the small sample uncertainty.