In the New York City Police Department (NYPD), 1) Why is it good to get a college degree when you are in the police academy? 2) What skills does a college degree give to an individual to become a better police officer, and what do they get out of it?

It is beneficial for police academy students to get a college degree because a college education provides future officers with critical thinking and communication skills that will help them on the job. Officers who have college degrees can often write and speak better and with more clarity, and these skills are useful in communicating with people in the community and writing incident reports. In addition, the critical thinking skills provided by a college education help officers think about incidents from more than one perspective. Studies have found that police officers without a college degree have a higher rate of disciplinary actions taken against them than officers without a college degree, suggesting that officers with a college degree learn skills in college that help them communicate with others and diffuse difficult situations in appropriate ways. In addition, police officers with college degrees might earn more respect from members of the community and might earn more respect for the profession as a whole.