undergradly.
Public College

CUNY John
Jay College of Criminal Justice

Public College in New York, NY. Six-year graduation rate 56%. Median 10-year earnings $56,195.

Verdict High-mobility campus
CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice · Campus
Median earnings · 10 yr
$56,195
Median debt at grad
$11,000
Mobility score
9.7
% bottom→top quintile
Graduation rate
55.8%
Federal loan default
0%

Students who entered CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice land at a median of $56,195 a decade later, close to what most four-year schools deliver. Six-year completion sits at 56%, near the national average for undergraduate institutions. Median debt at graduation is $11,000, a light load against those earnings. On economic mobility, 9.7% of students travel from the bottom income quintile to the top.

Earnings: College Scorecard, median ten years after entry across students who received federal aid — completers and non-completers alike.

Green Flags
  • Debt-to-income ratio 0.20 — healthy (below the 0.40 threshold)
  • Mobility score 9.7 — top quartile among US colleges
  • 3-year loan default 0.0% — below national benchmark
Red Flags

Admissions

Acceptance rate
57%
Applicants
19,238
Yield rate
19.4%

Selectivity is real here: only 57% of applicants are offered a place. With 19,238 applications received, this is a school operating at national scale. Only 19% of admitted students enroll — the great majority of admits go elsewhere or nowhere. The score bands below rest on the 8% of enrolled first-years who submitted an SAT score — a self-selected group, and not a cutoff.

Test score bands (middle 50% of submitters)

These bands describe the enrolled first-years who submitted a score, not the entering class. Where most students apply test-optional the submitters are a self-selected, higher-scoring group.

Test 25th–75th percentile Submitted
SAT Evidence-Based Reading 480–620 172 (8%)
SAT Math 450–600
ACT Composite

IPEDS Admissions · 2024

Apply at CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice →

Academics

Full-time retention
82%
Transfer-out rate
20%
Student:faculty
16:1

56% graduate within six years — average, but that average still hides a large group who do not. 82% of full-time first-years return for a second year — a healthy figure. That gap between coming back and finishing is where this school loses people — after the first year, not during it. 20% transfer out. IPEDS does not follow them, so whether they finished elsewhere is not recorded either way. A 16:1 ratio is unremarkable; expect a mix of lecture halls and seminars.

Financial Aid

Average net price
$4,082
Full-time, first-time undergraduates paying the in-state rate who were awarded grant or scholarship aid
% receiving grants
75%
degree- or certificate-seeking undergraduates
% receiving federal loans
8%
degree- or certificate-seeking undergraduates

IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24 · grant and loan rates against 11,340 degree- or certificate-seeking undergraduates

Students pay an average of $4,082 annually, well below typical undergraduate net price. The income table below is the number that matters — $1,073 at $0–30k versus $13,292 at $110k+. 75% of students receive grant aid, averaging $9,082 — common but not automatic. Only 8% take federal loans. Private borrowing is not captured in this figure.

Entering first-year students

A different, smaller group than the rates above: full-time students in their first year of college anywhere. The grant series here also excludes the "other sources" counted in the all-undergraduate figure, so the two are not comparable.

% receiving grants
87%
Average grant
$9,966

IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24 · 2,027 students

Net price by family income

The same students as the headline above, limited to those who received Title IV federal aid — a narrower group, with a lower overall average. IPEDS publishes no combined figure across these bands, so they should not be averaged into one.

Family income band Average net price
$0–30k $1,073
$30–48k $2,506
$48–75k $6,760
$75–110k $8,427
$110k+ $13,292

IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24

Federal student loans went to 950 of these 11,340 students, totalling $6,015,059 — an average of $6,332 each.

IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24

Local housing costs

Typical rents near campus (New York County) — budget these against any cost-of-attendance housing estimate.

Studio
$2,529/mo
1 bedroom
$2,655/mo
2 bedroom (whole unit)
$2,910/mo

HUD Fair Market Rents (40th-percentile gross rent incl. utilities) · FY2026

Veterans & GI Bill

GI Bill students
353
Yellow Ribbon
No
Principles of Excellence
Yes

VA GI Bill Comparison Tool (Veterans Affairs GIDS)

Compare CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice with peer institutions

How we evaluate CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice

IPEDS
US Department of Education
College Scorecard
Post-grad earnings
Census PSEO
Earnings by major
Opportunity Insights
Mobility by institution
Read our full methodology →