More police agencies require incoming personnel to have a college education background, in the hope that college-educated officers will be more rounded thinkers and will exhibit a greater humanistic bent Students from three southern colleges read vignettes and sentenced a murder defendant and an automobile theft defendant to a term of imprisonment. This study tested three hypotheses: (1) Police-oriented criminal justice majors will not issue more severe sentences; (2) Greater exposure to college from the freshman to the senior years will be accompanied by less severe sentences; and (3) Sentencing will be independent of social characteristics. The results provided little evidence supporting a more authoritarian and more punitive stereotype of criminal justice majors interested in pursuing police careers. Although criminal justice majors initially looked more punitive when dealing with a murder defendant, that relationship disappeared when control variables were introduced. Thus, it seems that higher education does deliver a more humanistic candidate for police work. Tables, references, appendix