19 institutions in California hold CCNE accreditation for the Doctor of Nursing Practice. Published in-state graduate tuition among them starts at $7,176 a year, at California State University-Fresno.
The score is a local one.Positions are worked out against the 16 scored institutions in California and not against the country, so a program near the top here sits somewhere else entirely on the national list.
2
In-state rates vary enormously here.Published annual in-state graduate tuition among the 16 California institutions that report one runs from $7,176 to $57,326, a 8-fold spread inside one state and one reporting year.
3
Mostly private institutions.9 of the 16 institutions with federal figures are private, so most published rates here do not turn on residency, and private sticker prices are discounted more heavily than public ones.
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Distance study is the exception here.Only 5 of the 16 carry the federal distance-education flag, so studying at a distance from California usually means enrolling somewhere else.
Metro Guides Inside This State
Narrower than this page and organized around a commute rather than a
border. Each one counts a census metropolitan area, so it can cross a
state line where this page cannot.
Three published figures, weighted. Scores are relative to the
16 institutions on this page and to nothing
else.
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.
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.
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 16 DNP Programs In California, Ranked
Ordered on published in-state tuition, annual DNP conferrals and
institution-wide undergraduate completion, weighted for a state
page so cost leads. Scores are relative to the 16 institutions on this page and
not to the country, the same program carries a different
number on the national list. How this is built.
Every ranked institution in California, with what the federal record
publishes for it and how its score was composed.
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.
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.
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.
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. School-wide average graduate tuition here, which excludes DNP add-on charges, sits in the middle third of the 306 accredited institutions that publish a rate, in the 2023-24 federal figures.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. School-wide average graduate tuition here, which excludes DNP add-on charges, sits in the lowest fifth of the 306 accredited institutions that publish a rate, in the 2023-24 federal figures. The doctorate is filed federally as a distance program and it is small, conferring a handful of degrees a year.
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. School-wide average graduate tuition here, which excludes DNP add-on charges, sits in the highest tenth of the 306 accredited institutions that publish a rate, in the 2023-24 federal figures, and it is one rate whatever state you live in.
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.
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.
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.
These programs hold current CCNE
accreditation. They file their DNP
conferrals under a specialty classification rather than under
Nursing Practice, so the federal tuition and conferral figures
used above are not available for them and
they are not scored.
Long Beach publishes its curriculum in a way that lets you see where the time goes. The BSN-to-DNP is 72 semester units over three years full-time, split into 15 required nursing courses worth 39 credits, five clinical specialty courses worth 24 units, and four courses worth nine units for the doctoral project. On top of that you complete a minimum of 1,000 clinical hours. Teaching is hybrid, part face to face and part online. Two admission facts matter more than the rest: students start in fall semesters only, so a missed cycle costs a year, and the school caps transfer credit at nine units. The deadline the page currently names is January 15, 2027.
Loma Linda takes students three times a year rather than once, and publishes each deadline: April 15 for fall, October 1 for winter, January 29 for spring. Most classes run asynchronously online with quarterly in-person meetings, so the rhythm is remote study punctuated by campus weeks. Two conditions are worth settling early. A California RN license has to be in hand before classes start, not at application, and endorsement takes months. And you need a year of full-time RN experience before you can move into clinical courses. The neonatal track carries an unusual promise: a guaranteed Level IV NICU placement, coordinated by the program and included in your tuition rather than left to you to find.
The UC Davis figures worth knowing describe its nurse anesthesia doctorate, and they are unusually candid about load. The program runs 36 months, or 12 quarters of year-round study including three summers, and the school tells applicants to prepare for 30 to 45 hours of class work a week depending on the quarter. Clinically you will log more than 2,000 hours across general and specialty anesthesia cases, which is double the thousand-hour floor the accreditation standard sets for a doctorate. Entry wants a year of full-time clinical RN experience, which UC Davis states as 2,080 hours rather than leaving it vague, plus at least eight hours shadowing a nurse anesthetist or an anesthesiologist before you apply.
Choosing A DNP Program In California
What studying in California changes. The questions that apply wherever
you study are on the national ranking page.
Settle your residency before you compare anything else
Across the 6 public institutions in California publishing both rates, the out-of-state rate runs a median of 2.3 times the in-state one. At University of California-Irvine the gap is $15,102 a year on its own. Residency is decided by the state under its own rules and a distance program does not confer it, so for an out-of-state applicant this one question is worth more than the difference between most of the programs on this page.
With 19 to read, cut on the track before you cut on the school
That is more institutions than anyone reads properly, and the cut that removes most of them is the population focus rather than the ranking. A university with a strong doctorate may not run the specialty you want, and a track can be closed to new applicants while the rest of the program keeps recruiting. Decide the specialty first, then read what is left. The ranking above orders what remains on published tuition, conferrals and completion.
The California board of nursing decides the license, not the diploma
No doctorate confers authority to practice or prescribe. That authority comes from an advanced practice license the state issues and the national certification behind it, which is why a DNP-prepared and a master's-prepared nurse practitioner on the same license prescribe the same things. What varies between states is the licensure requirement itself, so take it from the board rather than from a program page, and take it early: several programs want an active license in the state where your practicum will happen rather than wherever you hold one now, and licensure by endorsement runs to months. What the degree does and does not grant sets out the distinction.
The distance flag here records delivery, not your week
5 of the 16 measured institutions in California carry it. That flag records only that taught content can be delivered at a distance. It says nothing about campus days, and nothing about the supervised practice hours, which happen in a building with a preceptor present wherever you enroll. Ask for the number of on-campus days and the months they fall in, because that is what you hold against a roster. Online DNP programs ranks the distance-flagged field nationally.
The schools without figures are not the weaker ones
California State University, Long Beach, Loma Linda University and University of California, Davis file conferrals under a specialty classification rather than under Nursing Practice, so the federal columns this page ranks on do not exist for them. They carry the same CCNE accreditation as everything in the ranking above. A missing figure here is a filing convention rather than a verdict, and reading it as one would put a real option out of your reach for no reason. The notes beside those names come from the schools' own pages.
Nursys, the national
license verification system operated by the boards themselves
AANP places California in its restricted practice category,
which it defines this way: state law restricts the ability to engage in at least one element of practice, requiring supervision, delegation or team management by another health provider for the nurse practitioner to give patient care.
A degree confers no prescriptive authority. It comes from a state advanced practice license and the national certification behind it, so a DNP-prepared and a master’s-prepared nurse practitioner holding the same license prescribe the same things.
So the thing to settle here is the supervision requirement rather than
the diploma. Ask the board what supervision, delegation or team
management the statute requires, and ask an employer who provides it,
because in a restricted state that arrangement is a condition of working
at all rather than a formality.
Practice environment from AANP's California fact sheet, read 2026-09-08;
AANP last revised the classification 05/2026. It is AANP's reading of
state statute rather than a federal designation, and statutes move each legislative
session, so confirm it with the board before you rely on it.
Board details read from the NCSBN member directory on 2026-09-08.
Licensure requirements change by legislative session, so treat anything
you read here as a pointer to the board rather than a substitute for it.
What The Work Pays In California
BLS OEWS, May 2025. BLS classifies by occupation, not by credential: there is no DNP wage series, and every figure here covers everyone in the occupation regardless of which degree they hold.
Nurse practitioners in California have a median of $168,520, which ranks 1 of the 51 jurisdictions the survey publishes a median for, across about 25,120 people in the state.
Paid near the top of the national range across a workforce this size, which is the combination that gives a practitioner somewhere to move to without leaving the state.
A median is the midpoint of what people in the occupation are paid, so half
earn less and half earn more; it is not a starting salary and not an offer.
Every row is one federal series, ranked against every jurisdiction that
series covers. Nothing here is a job-board average. DNP salary sets out the
national picture.
Shortage Areas, And The Debt Relief Attached To Them
HRSA designated primary-care Health Professional Shortage Areas, read 2026-09-08.
Designated areas
576
Of those, rural
232
Median score
16
Highest score
24
Unusually, most of the designated shortage in California is not rural.
Only 232 of the 576 designations are, so the
approved site that qualifies you is as likely to be a city clinic as a
country one. A designation is a statement about how many primary-care providers
serve a defined area relative to its population. It describes supply,
not hiring.
The designations here differ widely in priority. The median scores 16 against a highest of 24, so which
approved site you join moves your funding position further than
anything about the state as a whole does.
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.
Whether a particular employer counts as an approved site is settled by
the program, not by the designation, so check the site before you take
the job rather than after. HRSA's shortage-area data portal
maps the designations. Paying for a DNP
covers the routes that do not depend on where you practice.
Studying From Outside California
5 of the 19 accredited doctorates in California 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 California this cycle, and whether it will place you for supervised clinical
hours near where you live.
What The Figures On This Page Are
Tuition is the institution's published annual graduate rate. It is
not a DNP per-credit price, it is not a total program cost, and
it is not what anyone pays after aid. A DNP taken part-time over
four years does not cost four times the annual figure, because
most programs bill by the credit.
DNP awards are conferrals in the reporting year at that
institution. The figure says a program is running and how much
of it is running; it does not say the program is better than a
smaller one, and the rubric stops rewarding volume above 25
conferrals for that reason.
Undergraduate completion is exactly that, the federal
150%-of-normal-time rate for first-time, full-time bachelor's
students at the institution. It is the weakest input in the model
and carries the smallest weight. No federal series reports DNP
completion, so nothing on this site claims one.
Of the 16 institutions with federal figures here,
7 are at public institutions. In-state tuition at a
public school is available only to residents; the out-of-state
rate is frequently two to four times higher and is the figure an
out-of-state applicant should be reading.
5 institutions here
are flagged by the federal survey as
offered at a distance. That flag records how the coursework is
delivered. It does not mean the clinical hours are remote, and
it does not mean a student never travels to campus.
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers specific to California. The degree-wide questions are answered on the guides.
How many DNP programs are there in California?
19, which is more than anyone reads properly. The cut that removes most of them is the specialty rather than the score: a strong institution may not run the track you want, and a track can be closed to new applicants while the rest of the school keeps recruiting.
How much does a DNP cost in California?
Published in-state rates run $7,176 to $57,326, a spread of about 8.0 times inside one state. At that width the ranking matters less than knowing which end you are looking at, and the cheap end is usually public and usually conditional on residency.
Is a DNP cheaper in California if you live there?
Yes, by $15,102 a year at the widest of the 6 public institutions publishing both rates. Enrolling in a distance program does not confer residency; the state sets it under its own rules.
Can a nurse practitioner practice independently in California?
No. California is restricted practice in AANP's classification, its most constrained category: statute requires career-long supervision, delegation or team management by another provider. The doctorate changes nothing about that, because authority comes from the license and the statute behind it.
What do nurse practitioners earn in California?
A median of $168,520, $36,220 above the national $132,300. That is a state figure for the occupation, and the cost of living behind it is not in the number.
Does federal loan repayment apply in California?
It can. 576 designated primary-care shortage areas, 232 of them rural, so both kinds of site exist. Eligibility attaches to an approved site rather than to the jurisdiction, which makes it an employer question.
Can you study for a DNP online in California?
5 of the 16 measured institutions carry the flag. It covers taught content and nothing else, so the number to ask each school for is on-campus days and the months they fall in.
Sources
Two datasets produce every figure on this page, and the institutions those figures describe are listed under them. Nothing here is compiled from a school's own marketing material.
1CCNE Accredited Program Directory It decides which institutions appear on this page at all: the 19 in California below are the ones it lists as holding current accreditation for the Doctor of Nursing Practice.
2IPEDS Published tuition, annual conferrals, institutional completion and the distance-education flag.
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.
The Institutions Behind These Figures
Every institution the two datasets name in California, alphabetically.
A link is the web address that institution reports to the federal
directory, the school’s own site, not a page about the
doctorate.
Where this site has fetched a page on that site and confirmed
it contains the words “Doctor of Nursing Practice”,
that page is linked too and marked as confirmed; that is true of
1 of
19 here.
