Best DNP Programs In California 2026

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (professional)

Fullerton asks for one commitment that decides it for a lot of working nurses: students must be available all day on Fridays for the entirety of the program. The format is hybrid, on-site and online, so that standing Friday is the practical constraint to weigh against a rota before anything else. Admission requires a master’s from a regionally accredited institution and a nursing specialty, and the indirect care track narrows that further to a master’s in nursing leadership, administration, education or community health, so this is a doctorate for nurses who have already specialized. Clinical hours can be completed at your own place of employment. The program has been run by the CSUF School of Nursing since 2023, its predecessor consortium having graduated a final cohort in 2024.

In-State Tuition

$6,084

Out-Of-State

$18,684

DNP Awards

51

UG Completion

70%

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (research)

Irvine’s post-master’s DNP is a two-year, primarily online commitment written for working professionals, and the family nurse practitioner track is the heavy one at 98 units and 1,020 hours of clinical practice, though California counts in quarter units, so the load is less alarming than it looks. The useful provision is that the clinical hours attached to the scholarly project can be completed at your own place of employment or another agency suited to the project, which removes the hardest logistical problem in the degree for anyone already working somewhere appropriate. Cohorts are small and the school says it turns away qualified applicants. Nurses employed on a career appointment within the University of California system can apply for a $10,000 scholarship.

In-State Tuition

$12,260

Out-Of-State

$44,148

DNP Awards

26

UG Completion

87%

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (research)

UCLA attaches a freshness rule to one prerequisite that quietly rules people out: the statistics course has to have been taken within five years of when you matriculate. A course from your bachelor’s a decade ago will not carry, so budget for retaking it. The pediatric practitioner focus is scoped precisely, newborns through young adults up to age 21, which tells you the patient population instead of leaving pediatric to mean whatever you assume. The doctorate carries no distance flag in the federal filing, so this is a Los Angeles program rather than a remote one. Out-of-state tuition runs about three and a half times the in-state rate, which is the number that decides it for most applicants from elsewhere.

In-State Tuition

$12,260

Out-Of-State

$44,148

DNP Awards

11

UG Completion

93%

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (professional)

San Jose State runs a five-semester post-master’s doctorate and is precise about the campus commitment, which is the number that actually decides whether an online program is workable. Three on-campus meetings across the whole degree: orientation at the start, one midway, and the oral defense and graduation at the end of the fifth semester. Everything else is online. Admission is by cohort in the fall only, and your master’s has to be finished by 1 August before you start, so a degree still in progress that spring is cutting it fine. A master’s in a health-related field can qualify you as well as one in nursing. Project defenses are held publicly, which shows you what the end of this program looks like before you begin it.

In-State Tuition

$6,084

Out-Of-State

$18,684

DNP Awards

6

UG Completion

69%

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (professional)
• Offered online

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

UMass Global’s catalog carries a course most schools would rather you did not read about: a zero-credit independent practicum for students who still need to finish their doctoral project hours or the manuscript, and it carries a continuing candidacy fee. It is graded pass or no pass and needs your project chair’s permission. Projects overrun, and this is what it costs when yours does. The rest is straightforward. Three routes run, a post-master’s base track, a post-master’s route that adds a clinical specialty, and a bachelor’s entry, each with clinical residency courses attached. A gap analysis or degree audit can add an independent doctoral topic credit, so what you take is set against your record rather than fixed in advance.

In-State Tuition

$12,000

Out-Of-State

$12,000

DNP Awards

11

UG Completion

43%

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (professional)
• Offered online

Fresno State reviews applications on a rolling basis as they arrive rather than against one closing date, and everyone who progresses is interviewed by the doctoral program before an offer. An interview stage is worth preparing for, because it means the decision is not made on paper alone. Applications go through Cal State Apply, the system-wide portal, so the mechanics are the same as for any California State campus. In-state tuition here is in the cheapest tenth on this site, which for a California resident is the strongest argument on the card. The doctorate is filed federally as a distance program and it is small, conferring a handful of degrees a year.

In-State Tuition

$6,084

Out-Of-State

$18,684

DNP Awards

5

UG Completion

57%

• CCNE-accredited
• Private nonprofit
• Doctorate (professional)

Charles R. Drew runs a 40-credit DNP on a cohort model, so you move through it with the same group rather than assembling a schedule of your own. The format is precepted clinical placements alongside online coursework, and the weekend structure is published rather than left vague: three hours of synchronous class followed by twelve hours of asynchronous study. That ratio is the useful part, because it tells you the live commitment is small and the independent one is not, which is the reverse of how most hybrid programs are described to you. The program holds CCNE accreditation, awarded after the degree launched rather than carried across from an existing one.

In-State Tuition

$23,000

Out-Of-State

$23,000

DNP Awards

11

UG Completion

30%

• CCNE-accredited
• Private nonprofit
• Doctorate (other)
• Offered online

Samuel Merritt is a health sciences university rather than a campus with a nursing school attached, and its doctoral output against its size is among the highest in the country: about 1,900 students in total and forty-six nursing doctorates a year. The routes are counted in units rather than years. The post-master’s doctorate needs a minimum of 30 semester units and the family nurse practitioner doctorate needs 65, so what you already hold roughly halves the work. Graduation also turns on finishing the clinical hours set for your specialty track rather than one figure for the whole degree, which means the family and psychiatric mental health routes carry different totals and the track page is where those live.

In-State Tuition

$50,138

Out-Of-State

$50,138

DNP Awards

46

• CCNE-accredited
• Private nonprofit
• Doctorate (research)

California Baptist runs its doctorate as an indirect care, systems leadership degree entered from a master’s, which means it prepares you to change how care is delivered rather than to treat a new population. The shape is 36 to 45 units over two years and six terms, part-time, taught asynchronously online with mandatory on-campus residencies three or four times across the program. Admission wants a 3.0 cumulative average and verification of the supervised practicum hours your master’s included, and it will consider a master’s in another discipline. The application itself asks you to name a problem worth doctoral work and a project that would address it, so the school expects you to arrive with the work already in mind.

In-State Tuition

$39,078

Out-Of-State

$39,078

DNP Awards

10

UG Completion

62%

• CCNE-accredited
• Private nonprofit
• Doctorate (professional)

San Diego runs an unusually wide set of bachelor’s-entry tracks, two of them dual routes that qualify you in a second population: pediatric with family, and adult-gerontology with family. Earning two certifications inside one sequence is rare, and worth weighing against the extra time it takes. One condition settles it for anyone outside California: your California license endorsement has to be in progress at the point of admission, so the licensing question cannot wait until after you arrive. The grade point average floor is 3.0, calculated on your most recent bachelor’s or graduate coursework rather than on everything you have ever taken, and a year of clinical experience is preferred rather than required.

In-State Tuition

$58,420

Out-Of-State

$58,420

DNP Awards

33

UG Completion

84%

• CCNE-accredited
• Private nonprofit
• Doctorate (professional)

Azusa Pacific attaches its experience requirement to a point inside the program rather than to admission. The family nurse practitioner track wants eight months of work as a registered nurse before you begin the second year of courses, so you can be admitted while you are still accumulating it, which is not how most schools handle the same requirement. The residency requirement is 1,000 hours, and the school counts leadership experience toward that total alongside clinical work, a broader definition than programs treating the whole thing as patient contact. Admitted students hold their place in the cohort with a nonrefundable deposit, so the commitment lands earlier than at schools admitting on a rolling basis.

In-State Tuition

$43,758

Out-Of-State

$43,758

DNP Awards

11

UG Completion

62%

• CCNE-accredited
• Private nonprofit
• Doctorate (professional)
• Offered online

Point Loma splits the 1,000 clinical hours in a way few schools spell out: at least 500 must be direct patient care and 500 attach to the DNP project itself. If you assumed the project counted as paperwork rather than as practice hours, that changes the shape of the whole second half of the degree. The clinical nurse specialist route is fully asynchronous and runs 55 to 65 units depending on the prerequisites you arrive holding. Healthcare leadership from an MSN is 24 months, six semesters. Family nurse practitioner is the long one at 76 units and as many as ten semesters, and it is also the route with in-person requirements: two on-campus intensive weekends on top of clinicals, with synchronous sessions optional rather than required.

In-State Tuition

$45,300

Out-Of-State

$45,300

DNP Awards

5

UG Completion

77%

• CCNE-accredited
• Private nonprofit
• Doctorate (professional)

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

San Francisco runs its doctorate at three locations, San Francisco, Sacramento and Orange County, which is unusual for a private university and means a California applicant may have a campus within reach without moving. Two clinical routes run, family practice and psychiatric mental health, and both are filed federally as campus programs rather than distance ones, so the location question here is real rather than nominal. The regular application deadline is 15 May across all three sites. Tuition sits near the top of the range on this site, which makes the funding conversation matter more than at most places, and worth having before the application one.

In-State Tuition

$59,950

Out-Of-State

$59,950

DNP Awards

8

UG Completion

70%

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (research)

UCSF was first in the University of California system to run a post-master’s entry to the doctorate, and that route is seven quarters, hybrid, combining online learning with selected in-person immersions. The bachelor’s entry route is hybrid too, with the majority of courses online. Quarters rather than semesters is the detail to plan around, because a quarter calendar moves faster and the breaks fall in different places from the schedule most employers assume. This is a graduate health sciences campus of about 3,000 people with no undergraduate college attached, and against that size it confers nursing doctorates at one of the higher rates in the country.

DNP Awards

24

• CCNE-accredited
• Private for-profit
• Doctorate (professional)
• Offered online

St. Augustine publishes the whole shape of its psychiatric mental health route: 77 credit hours plus 1,334 practicum contact hours across 12 trimesters, about four years from a bachelor’s. Coursework is online with one required clinical intensive held virtually, which is a genuinely different commitment from flying somewhere. Two details reward a close read. Practicum hours here run well above the thousand most programs settle at, and the university publishes a different credit total for students in Arkansas, so the state you live in can change the degree requirement. Against its size this is one of the larger producers of nursing doctorates in the country.

DNP Awards

52

• CCNE-accredited
• Private nonprofit
• Doctorate (professional)

Western University does something for career-changers that almost no practitioner program does: an applicant without a full year of registered nurse experience still qualifies. You are placed on a modified curriculum and must complete 1,800 hours of RN employment by the end of the first year instead of before you start. For a nurse who wants to keep moving rather than wait out a year at the bedside, that is the whole decision. The prerequisite that catches people is smaller and stricter: a statistics course of at least two semester units passed at C or better, taken at a regionally accredited institution in the United States.

DNP Awards

1