Public-Safety Degrees and Career Outcomes
Five public-safety fields produced 37,397 awards, with broader earnings and connected career outcomes varying substantially.
Compare criminal-justice and public-safety degree production with policing, corrections, fire, emergency-management, and security careers. Use IPEDS, College Scorecard earnings, CIP–SOC, BLS wages and projections, state projections, job requirements, licenses where covered, and observed AI use. Show the wide range of career outcomes connected to broad public-safety fields. Create one chart and avoid implying that graduates enter a specific occupation.
Public-safety fields connect structurally to careers in policing, corrections, fire, emergency management, and security. These links do not measure graduate destinations.
Criminal justice and fire science produced most selected awards
IPEDS reported 37,397 first-major awards across five selected public-safety fields in 2025–26.
- Criminal Justice/Police Science: 19,975 awards.
- Fire Science/Fire-fighting: 10,359 awards.
- Corrections: 3,804 awards.
- Crisis/Emergency/Disaster Management: 2,762 awards.
- Security and Loss Prevention Services: 497 awards.
These counts come from the July 21, 2026 provisional IPEDS release and can be revised.
Earnings differed across broader field cohorts
For bachelor’s-degree populations, four-year weighted median earnings ranged from $56,226 in Criminal Justice/Police Science to $88,735 in Fire Science/Fire-fighting.
The comparable figures were $59,343 for Corrections and $60,656 for Security and Loss Prevention Services.
Crisis/Emergency/Disaster Management had four-year weighted median earnings of $73,703.
These College Scorecard figures describe broader field cohorts, not specific programs or occupations.
National career outlooks moved in different directions
BLS projects 2024–34 employment growth of 3.4% for firefighters and 3.1% for patrol officers.
It projects 3.0% growth for emergency management directors and 0.4% for security guards.
BLS projects a 7.8% decline for correctional officers and jailers over the same period.
May 2025 national median wages ranged from $38,020 for security guards to $93,330 for emergency management directors.
Texas publishes licenses for policing and corrections
Texas records connect patrol officers with a peace-officer license and correctional officers with a county-jailer license.
Both records list a required course and state examination.
These records do not prove that a degree meets licensing requirements or that an individual qualifies.
Observed AI use was limited and source-specific
For May–June 2026, Claude.ai observations represented 0.01% for patrol officers and 0.18% for correctional officers.
First-party API observations represented 0.24% for patrol officers and 0.95% for correctional officers.
Emergency management directors and security guards had observed values of zero in both sources.
Limitations
The field-to-career links show preparation connections, not placement probabilities or actual graduate destinations.
BLS projections do not predict an individual’s job prospects, and observed Claude use does not measure displacement or employment effects.
Median pay varies across connected public-safety careers, May 2025
The chart compares May 2025 national median annual wages for five connected careers. Emergency Management Directors have the highest displayed median at $93,330. Security Guards have the lowest at $38,020. Every downloadable row includes a career-area label.
| Career | Median annual wage | Career Group | Soc6 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Emergency Management Directors | $93,330 | emergency management | 11-9161 |
| Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers | $76,210 | policing | 33-3051 |
| Firefighters | $59,280 | fire | 33-2011 |
| Correctional Officers and Jailers | $58,940 | corrections | 33-3012 |
| Security Guards | $38,020 | security | 33-9032 |