Best DNP Programs

Bridgeport-Stamford metro

Best DNP Programs In Bridgeport-Stamford 2026

2 accredited institutions in the Bridgeport-Stamford metro, with school-wide average graduate tuition from $20,625 to $34,060 a year in state.
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Key Takeaways

  1. 1

    Price will not narrow this list. The published in-state rates here sit inside a band of roughly 1.7 times, which is tight for a metro. That pushes the decision onto track, cohort size and who arranges the clinical placement.

  2. 2

    Every institution here is private. No public option means residency buys you nothing in this metro. A private institution charges one rate wherever you live, so an out-of-state applicant is on the same terms as a local one.

  3. 3

    Sacred Heart University is most of this metro. It conferred 32 of the 37 DNP awards recorded here, which is 86% of them, against 5 at Fairfield University. Treat the others as genuinely small programs rather than as alternatives of a similar size.

  4. 4

    1 of 2 reach you at a distance. That many carry the federal distance-education flag, which covers taught content and never the supervised practice hours. Ask for the number of on-campus days and the months they fall in.

Two Private Universities In One Town, And The Smaller One Runs More Tracks

School-wide average graduate tuition in this metro, which excludes DNP add-on charges, runs from $20,625 a year in state at Fairfield University to $34,060 at Sacred Heart University, about one and a half times apart, in the 2023-24 federal figures.

All two priced institutions are private, and each charges the same rate whatever your residency, so moving here or not does not change the bill.

Sacred Heart University conferred the most DNPs in the metro in the reporting year, 32, and charges the highest graduate rate here.

These are average tuition figures for full-time graduate students across each institution, not a DNP price. Some doctoral programs add a tuition differential on top, so ask each school for its DNP rate per credit before comparing.

Sacred Heart is the one flagged for distance education. Given that this metro sits inside the New York commuting belt and that the New York metro has its own much larger field an hour away, a reader here is realistically weighing two local private programs against a distance program and against a considerably deeper market over the state line.

How This Ranking Is Scored

Three published figures, weighted. Scores are relative to the 2 institutions on this page and to nothing else.

  1. 50%

    Published in-state graduate tuition

    Institution-level. Average annual tuition for full-time graduate students, 2023-24, from IPEDS. Not a DNP per-credit rate, not including program differentials, and not net of aid.

  2. 35%

    Established program

    Program-level. DNP conferrals in this CIP and award level in the reporting year, saturating at 25. Above that a program scores full marks and gains nothing further for size.

  3. 15%

    Institution-wide undergraduate completion

    Institution-level and undergraduate. The IPEDS 150%-of-normal-time rate for first-time, full-time bachelor's students.

Nothing is imputed. A program that does not publish a figure is scored on the ones it does publish, with the remaining weights renormalized; below 2 published figures it is listed without a position rather than ranked on a single number. Accreditation is a condition of appearing at all, not a factor that earns points. What the rubric cannot see.

The Best 2 DNP Programs In Bridgeport-Stamford, Ranked

Ordered on the same three published figures the state guides use: in-state tuition, annual conferrals and completion rate. One row per institution, not per federal filing.

Each card shows what the institution publishes.

Ranked 1 of 2

Fairfield University

Fairfield, CT

65 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Private nonprofit
  • Professional practice doctorate

3 DNP tracks at this institution, Family nurse practitioner, Nursing practice (general), Psychiatric-mental health NP. Ranked once, on the largest.

Fairfield files five DNP specialties, and two of them, nurse anesthesia and nurse midwifery, are programs most universities do not attempt at all. The post-master’s doctorate is 30 to 32 credits and you can take it online or hybrid. The midwifery application is where the school shows its hand: it asks for a three-page personal statement covering why you want to be a nurse midwife, your goals for the next five to ten years, and what you intend to contribute to the profession. That is a lot of writing for an application, and it filters for people who have thought past the credential. The psychiatric mental health track carries the coursework needed to sit for certification through the American Nurses Credentialing Center.

Tuition
$20,625
In-state
Tuition
$20,625
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
5
Completion
84%
Undergraduate
About the tuition figures
School-wide graduate average, 2023-24. Excludes DNP add-on charges.

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 100
  • Established program 0
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 100

Visit Fairfield University →

Ranked 2 of 2

Sacred Heart University

Fairfield, CT

35 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Private nonprofit
  • Professional practice doctorate
  • Offered online

Sacred Heart builds the family nurse practitioner clinical work around you rather than handing you a rotation. Its two clinical immersion courses are designed individually against the student’s own clinical interests, which is a different arrangement from being placed wherever a slot happens to be open. The college also runs role immersion sequences for the clinical nurse leader and the nurse educator paths, each ending in a capstone rather than an exam. One course in the catalog tells you something no brochure will: there is a continuous enrollment option for students who need more time to finish required clinical hours. Hours run over more often than schools say out loud, and Sacred Heart has built a way to stay enrolled while you finish them.

Tuition
$34,060
In-state
Tuition
$34,060
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
32
Completion
73%
Undergraduate
About the tuition figures
School-wide graduate average, 2023-24. Excludes DNP add-on charges.

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 0
  • Established program 100
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 0

Visit Sacred Heart University →

What This Guide Counts As The Bridgeport-Stamford Metro

This guide follows the Bridgeport-Stamford-Danbury, CT metropolitan statistical area. Neither institution is in one of the four municipalities the metro is named for: both report Fairfield as their city. That is unusual enough to state plainly, because a reader searching for a program in Bridgeport or Stamford will find both of these and neither is there.

Municipalities Included

  • Fairfield, CT

Deliberately Not Included

  • Bridgeport, Stamford, Norwalk and Danbury, CT All inside the metro and none carrying an institution in the accredited dataset. Both institutions here report Fairfield as their city, so the metro name and the municipality list do not match, which is unusual on this site.
  • New Haven, CT Its own metropolitan area immediately east, separately delineated.
  • Westchester County and New York City, NY The New York-Newark-Jersey City metropolitan area, which begins at the state line and has its own guide. Many residents of this metro commute into it.

Choosing A DNP Program In Bridgeport-Stamford

What studying in the Bridgeport-Stamford metro changes. The questions that apply wherever you study are on the national ranking page.

Fairfield University and Sacred Heart University are the whole of the field in Bridgeport-Stamford

Fairfield University and Sacred Heart University file their conferrals under a specialty classification rather than under Nursing Practice, so the credit total, the entry routes and the clinical hour requirement live on their own pages rather than in the federal columns this page ranks on. Ask them who arranges clinical placements, and take the licensure question to the Connecticut board of nursing rather than to the school.

Who Licenses You In The Bridgeport-Stamford Metro

Practice environment from AANP’s own state fact sheets, read 2026-09-08; AANP last revised the classification 05/2026. Boards from the NCSBN member directory, read 2026-09-08.

Connecticut
Full Practice
Connecticut Board of Nurse Licensure

Every institution on this page sits in Connecticut, so one board licenses all of them and AANP classifies the jurisdiction as full practice. The school does not grant practice authority and never has; the license and the certification behind it do.

The board detail, the full AANP definition and the license verification route are on the state guide: DNP programs in Connecticut . AANP is reading state statute rather than issuing a federal designation, and statutes move each legislative session, so confirm with the board before you rely on it.

Shortage Areas, And The Debt Relief Attached To Them

HRSA designated primary-care Health Professional Shortage Areas, read 2026-09-08. These are state counts, not metro ones.

Connecticut, designated areas
41
Connecticut, of those rural
4

These figures cover Connecticut in full rather than the Bridgeport-Stamford metro specifically. HRSA publishes designations at the level of the individual area, and rolling them into a metro needs a county crosswalk this guide does not hold, so the state count is what is shown and it is shown as a state count. What follows from it still applies here, because eligibility never attached to a jurisdiction in the first place.

Both federal loan repayment routes open to advanced practice nurses require working at an approved site inside a designated area, and the area’s score sets funding priority when applications outrun the money: Nurse Corps Loan Repayment Program and NHSC Loan Repayment Program. HPSA primary-care scores run 0-25; funding priority for loan repayment follows the score.

In a metro that is mostly urban the practical consequence is that eligible sites are a smaller share of the employers you are likely to interview with than the state count suggests, and they are usually federally qualified health centers, public hospital systems and university clinics rather than private practices. Whether a particular employer counts is settled by the program rather than by the designation, so check the site before you take the job.

HRSA’s shortage-area data portal maps the designations to the address. Paying for a DNP covers the routes that do not depend on where you practice, and the state guide breaks the designations down further: Connecticut.

Studying From Outside The Bridgeport-Stamford Metro

1 of the 2 accredited doctorates in the Bridgeport-Stamford metro carry the federal distance-education flag, which leaves most of the local field expecting you in the room and makes an out-of-state program a real comparison rather than a fallback. Either way it turns on one thing this site cannot answer for you.

Authority to enroll a distance student is set per institution and per state, and the federal flag this page counts records delivery rather than permission, so only the school can answer it. Ask two things before tuition enters the conversation: whether the program can enroll a resident of the Bridgeport-Stamford metro this cycle, and whether it will place you for supervised clinical hours near where you live.

Which Bridgeport-Stamford Option Fits Your Situation

Each of these routes to a published figure or a named institution. None is a recommendation, and none is a statement about whether a school will admit you.

If you hold a bachelor's: Sacred Heart University states that route

Sacred Heart University's own pages name a bachelor's entry. Others in Bridgeport-Stamford may take bachelor's entrants too: this site records a route only where the school states it, so an absent name means unread rather than closed.

If you already hold an advanced practice credential: Fairfield University

Fairfield University publishes a post-master's route, the shorter way in when your master's already carries supervised hours. Ask how many transfer; the ceilings differ sharply.

If you cannot relocate: Sacred Heart University

Sacred Heart University carries the federal distance-education flag. The flag covers taught content only. Supervised hours still happen near you, and campus days are the school's to set, so ask for the count and the months.

If residency is out of reach: the private rate does not depend on it

A private institution charges one figure wherever you live, so without residency the comparison is against the out-of-state public rate. In Bridgeport-Stamford the cheapest published rate in the state belongs to one of its 2 private institutions.

What The Figures On This Page Are

Tuition is the institution’s published annual graduate rate, not a per-credit price and not a program total. Awards are conferrals in the reporting year. Completion is the federal undergraduate rate, the weakest input in the model, and no federal series reports DNP completion. Wages are the metropolitan cut of the federal survey, a different survey area from the state one. How this site scores programs sets out each input and its weight in full.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many DNP programs are there in Bridgeport-Stamford?

2 institutions in the Bridgeport-Stamford metro hold CCNE accreditation for the Doctor of Nursing Practice. This guide counts the Bridgeport-Stamford-Danbury, CT metropolitan statistical area rather than the city limits, so the figure includes institutions in 1 municipalities.

What counts as the Bridgeport-Stamford metro on this page?

The Bridgeport-Stamford-Danbury, CT metropolitan statistical area. In practice that means these municipalities: Fairfield, CT. Places deliberately left out are listed on this page with the reason.

Is it cheaper to study for a DNP in Bridgeport-Stamford than online?

Neither is reliably cheaper. Published in-state tuition at a public institution is usually the lowest figure available to someone who qualifies for it, and distance programs charge a single rate to everyone regardless of where they live. Which comes out lower depends entirely on whether you hold in-state status somewhere, so compare the published rates rather than the format.

Do these figures include fees and clinical costs?

No. Every tuition figure on this page is the published rate an institution reports to the federal government, which excludes fees, health insurance, textbooks and the travel a clinical placement can require. Treat it as a floor for comparison between institutions rather than a total cost of attendance.

Related Pages

Sources

  1. 1 CCNE Directory Of Accredited Programs Which institutions hold accreditation.
  2. 2 IPEDS Published tuition, conferrals and completion.
  3. 3 Metro Definition The Bridgeport-Stamford-Danbury, CT metropolitan statistical area, rolled up to the municipalities listed above. Institutions are matched on city and state.

Every federal figure on this site is read from the administering agency’s own page, never from a secondary aggregator, and the reading date is recorded beside it.

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