Is a Bachelor’s Degree Worth It for Police Officers?

Key Infor­ma­tion:

• The require­ments for becom­ing a police offi­cer vary wide­ly between states and depart­ments, with some posi­tions requir­ing only a high school diplo­ma and police acad­e­my train­ing. Pur­su­ing a degree can make you eli­gi­ble for more posi­tions and meet vary­ing state requirements.
• For those hes­i­tant about a four-year degree, alter­na­tives like asso­ciate degrees, cer­ti­fi­ca­tions, and employ­er-pro­vid­ed train­ing offer path­ways to enhance skills and career prospects in law enforce­ment with­out the exten­sive time and finan­cial invest­ment of a bachelor’s degree.
• A bachelor’s degree in law enforce­ment can pro­vide knowl­edge and skills, bet­ter net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, career advance­ment, and high­er poten­tial earn­ings. Advanced posi­tions like detec­tive often require a bachelor’s degree.

One of the ben­e­fits of becom­ing a police offi­cer is the low edu­ca­tion thresh­old — many posi­tions don’t require a col­lege degree, so you can start your career quite quick­ly. But if you’re think­ing about becom­ing a police offi­cer, pur­su­ing a bachelor’s degree is some­thing worth considering.

On the one hand, exceed­ing the police offi­cer edu­ca­tion require­ments might allow you to advance your career more quick­ly. On the oth­er hand, hav­ing addi­tion­al edu­ca­tion can ben­e­fit you as you car­ry out your duties. 

The time is now to eval­u­ate whether a bachelor’s degree in law enforce­ment is worth it to you. By plan­ning your edu­ca­tion­al path before you begin your career, you can com­plete the nec­es­sary train­ing to meet your career goals more quick­ly. Use this guide to help you decide if a bachelor’s degree is part of that equation.

Relat­ed:

• Career Paths With a Foren­sic Sci­ence Degree in Law Enforcement
• Ben­e­fits of Psy­chol­o­gy Degrees for Police Officers
• Best Degree For Police Careers: Crim­i­nal Jus­tice or Criminology?
• Top Police Col­leges for Cops

Current Educational Requirements for Police Officers

The edu­ca­tion require­ments for police offi­cers vary from one posi­tion to the next and one depart­ment to the next. How­ev­er, accord­ing to Indeed, some of the most com­mon require­ments are as follows:

• Have a high school diplo­ma or equivalency.
• Have a valid driver’s license.
• Be at least 21 years of age.
• Have no felony convictions.
• Pass a back­ground check, a drug test, and a psy­cho­log­i­cal evaluation.
• Pass a phys­i­cal fit­ness test.

Most law enforce­ment jobs also require you to com­plete police acad­e­my train­ing, which takes around 12 weeks in many cas­es. The key word here is “many.” Vari­abil­i­ty between dif­fer­ent depart­ments and states is very wide when it comes to police training.

For exam­ple, a peace offi­cer posi­tion in Rawl­ins, Wyoming, requires 12 weeks of train­ing. A sim­i­lar post in San Jose, Cal­i­for­nia, requires 30 weeks of train­ing. Sim­i­lar­ly, in some states, like Mon­tana, you can become a police offi­cer at the age of 18. Oth­er states require you to be 19–21 years old. Giv­en these dif­fer­ences, part of the plan­ning process should include a thor­ough exam­i­na­tion of police offi­cer require­ments in the local­i­ty and state where you wish to work. 

Benefits of Having a Bachelor’s Degree

With police offi­cer job train­ing so wide­ly var­ied, get­ting a high­er edu­ca­tion can help meet min­i­mum employ­ment require­ments in more states. Like­wise, with a bachelor’s degree, you’re more like­ly to sat­is­fy police depart­ment hir­ing require­ments, at least from an edu­ca­tion­al perspective.

Oth­er ben­e­fits of high­er edu­ca­tion for police include the following:

• Improved Knowl­edge and Skills — A bachelor’s degree pro­gram helps you build a deep­er knowl­edge of polic­ing as well as improved hard and soft skills (e.g., under­stand­ing of the legal sys­tem, com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills) you can use each day.
• Net­work­ing Oppor­tu­ni­ties — Col­lege pro­grams for police offi­cers enable you to build pro­fes­sion­al net­works that can help you find a job more quick­ly after grad­u­a­tion. Net­work­ing in law enforce­ment is crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant; hav­ing col­leagues you trust to pro­vide guid­ance and advice can be extreme­ly help­ful, espe­cial­ly in your first few weeks and months on the job.
• Career Advance­ment — Police career advance­ment is depen­dent, in part, on acquir­ing more skills and abil­i­ties. A col­lege degree cer­tain­ly helps you do just that. Many advanced posi­tions, like detec­tive, require appli­cants to have at least a bachelor’s degree.
• Bet­ter Earn­ings — Accord­ing to the Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics, Police and Sheriff’s Patrol Offi­cers earn a medi­an year­ly wage of $72,280. With a bachelor’s degree, you might qual­i­fy for an advanced posi­tion, like Detec­tive or Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tor, which pays a medi­an salary of $91,100. The cumu­la­tive effect of high­er law enforce­ment salaries can be sub­stan­tial, too.

It should be not­ed that police offi­cer pro­mo­tions aren’t sole­ly based on obtain­ing more edu­ca­tion or train­ing. Time served is a sig­nif­i­cant com­po­nent. On-the-job per­for­mance is also impor­tant. Some posi­tions require you to pass writ­ten or per­for­mance exams. In many cas­es, pro­mo­tions also depend on inter­views with supe­ri­or officers.

Challenges and Considerations

When ask­ing your­self, “Is a col­lege degree worth it for police offi­cers?”, it’s worth con­sid­er­ing some of the chal­lenges of obtain­ing a bachelor’s degree.

The cost of police offi­cer edu­ca­tion is as high as it’s ever been. Accord­ing to the Edu­ca­tion Data Ini­tia­tive, a typ­i­cal bachelor’s degree costs near­ly $36,500 in the U.S.. Many stu­dents need assis­tance pay­ing for col­lege, which often means tak­ing out loans. If this applies to you, the bur­den of repay­ing loans will be with you for a sig­nif­i­cant peri­od of time. Many bud­get-friend­ly crim­i­nal jus­tice degrees exist to help you min­i­mize costs, though.

There are also non-mon­e­tary costs of get­ting a degree for a law enforce­ment career. You have to con­sid­er the time com­mit­ment need­ed to com­plete a bachelor’s degree (four years if study­ing full-time, though some pro­grams are faster). Your social life will be impact­ed, too. The time need­ed to com­plete your stud­ies means you’ll have less time for fam­i­ly, friends, and leisure time.

It’s worth con­sid­er­ing the aca­d­e­m­ic chal­lenges as well. A bachelor’s degree requires you to com­plete gen­er­al class­es in math, sci­ence, Eng­lish, and oth­er core areas. If you strug­gle in these areas, com­plet­ing course­work can be even more stress­ful and demand­ing of your time. Upper-lev­el cours­es in crim­i­nal jus­tice and relat­ed fields can also be com­plex, requir­ing you to com­mit addi­tion­al time to com­plete your degree.

Of course, it’s worth eval­u­at­ing if a degree is even nec­es­sary. Police acad­e­my train­ing pro­vides you with the basic tech­niques and prac­tices of police work to start your career. It can be argued that this prac­ti­cal, on-the-job expe­ri­ence is more ben­e­fi­cial to you than the the­o­ret­i­cal stud­ies you’ll under­take in col­lege. Thus, the debate about police acad­e­my train­ing ver­sus col­lege edu­ca­tion goes on.

At the end of the day, more knowl­edge and train­ing can’t hurt. The com­bi­na­tion of prac­ti­cal train­ing at the police acad­e­my and the aca­d­e­m­ic exper­tise of a bachelor’s degree is the best of both worlds.

Alternatives to a Bachelor’s Degree

If you have doubts about whether a bachelor’s degree is right for you, oth­er high­er edu­ca­tion options are out there. For exam­ple, you might com­plete an associate’s degree in crim­i­nal jus­tice or a relat­ed field (or even an unre­lat­ed field, like com­put­er sci­ence). These degrees usu­al­ly require about 60 cred­its, which you can com­plete in two years of full-time stud­ies, com­pared to the four years need­ed to fin­ish a typ­i­cal bachelor’s degree.

Yet anoth­er option is to pur­sue a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of some kind. Accord­ing to Indeed, the fol­low­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tions are avail­able with­out a col­lege degree:

• Cer­ti­fied Pro­fes­sion­al Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tor (CPCI)
• Cer­ti­fied Cor­rec­tion­al Offi­cer (CCO)
• Cer­ti­fied Jail Offi­cer (CJO)
• Drug Recog­ni­tion Expert (DRE)
• Court Secu­ri­ty Certification

Each of these cer­ti­fi­ca­tions has dif­fer­ent require­ments and can lead to dif­fer­ent career paths in law enforce­ment. For exam­ple, the CCO cer­ti­fi­ca­tion requires a high school diplo­ma or equiv­a­lent and one year of expe­ri­ence work­ing as a cor­rec­tion­al offi­cer. You must also pass the CCO cer­ti­fi­ca­tion exam with a 70 per­cent or higher.

By con­trast, the CPCI cer­ti­fi­ca­tion requires you to meet one of the fol­low­ing eli­gi­bil­i­ty criteria:

• Have a high school diplo­ma and four or more years of law enforce­ment expe­ri­ence or inves­tiga­tive work 
• Have an associate’s degree and at least three years of law enforce­ment or inves­tiga­tive experience.
• Have a bachelor’s degree and two or more years of expe­ri­ence in law enforce­ment or inves­tiga­tive work.

Yet anoth­er avenue of improv­ing your­self through addi­tion­al edu­ca­tion is to par­tic­i­pate in train­ing pro­vid­ed by your employ­er. Most law enforce­ment posi­tions require you to com­plete a cer­tain num­ber of con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion or pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment hours each year. With wide lat­i­tude regard­ing the activ­i­ties that count toward these hours, you can tai­lor your train­ing expe­ri­ences to meet your spe­cif­ic career goals.

Conclusion

Choos­ing any career is a big deci­sion. But the stakes are high­er in law enforce­ment because you’ll put your life on the line each and every day you go to work. With so much at stake, tak­ing care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion of your path to becom­ing a police offi­cer is all the more important.

A bachelor’s degree equips you with more knowl­edge and skills to help you per­form bet­ter on the job. A degree can help you advance your career more quick­ly and qual­i­fy for more jobs, too. A high­er salary is pos­si­ble with a bachelor’s degree as well.

But your degree comes at a cost — both in terms of mon­ey and time. Many low­er-lev­el polic­ing posi­tions rely more on prac­ti­cal police train­ing than aca­d­e­m­ic train­ing, anyway.

Hav­ing said that, the ben­e­fits of get­ting a degree like­ly out­weigh the chal­lenges for most peo­ple. Ulti­mate­ly, though, the ques­tion is whether the high­er edu­ca­tion impact on polic­ing is worth it to you. There is no wrong answer here; just what’s best for you and your future goals.