Best DNP Programs

Cleveland metro

Best DNP Programs In Cleveland 2026

Three accredited institutions that conferred 39 doctorates between them, the smallest annual output of any metro guide on this site, and 29 of those came from the most expensive of the three.
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Key Takeaways

  1. 1

    3 accredited institutions, drawn from 2 municipalities. This guide counts the Cleveland, OH metropolitan area rather than the city limits, so the pool is wider than the city name suggests and every campus in it is inside one commute.

  2. 2

    1 public, 2 private, and the cheap end is public. Cleveland State University publishes $12,872 in-state, against $38,490 at the next option up. Residency is the lever here, and that figure is one school's published year rather than a typical cost: it leaves out fees, insurance and what reaching a clinical placement costs.

  3. 3

    Case Western Reserve University is most of this metro. It conferred 29 of the 39 DNP awards recorded here, which is 74% of them, against 6 at Cleveland State University. Treat the others as genuinely small programs rather than as alternatives of a similar size.

  4. 4

    1 of 3 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.

A Small Field, And The Expensive End Of It Produces Most Of The Graduates

Thirty-nine DNP awards were recorded across this metro in the reporting year. That is the lowest total of the eighteen metro guides here, and it is the single most useful thing to know before applying: the cohorts are small, and a program that confers four doctorates a year is a different experience from one that confers two hundred.

Case Western Reserve University accounts for 29 of the 39 and publishes $66,020 a year, the highest rate in this metro and among the highest on the site. Cleveland State University publishes $12,872 and conferred 6. Ursuline College publishes $38,490 and conferred 4.

So price and scale run together here rather than against each other, which is the opposite of the pattern on most of these pages. There is no large, cheap option in this metro. The nearest thing to one is Cleveland State at a fifth of the Case Western rate, and it is a small program; a reader who needs both scale and a low published rate will not find both inside this commute.

How This Ranking Is Scored

Three published figures, weighted. Scores are relative to the 3 institutions on this page and to nothing else.

  1. 50%

    Published in-state graduate tuition

    Institution-level. Published annual graduate tuition, not a DNP per-credit rate 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.

Accredited Schools In The Cleveland Metro, 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.

# Program In-state tuition DNP awards UG completion Score of 100
1 of 3 Cleveland State University Cleveland, OH · Public $12,872 6 51% 57.1
2 of 3 Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, OH · Private nonprofit $66,020 29 87% 50
3 of 3 Ursuline College Pepper Pike, OH · Private nonprofit · offered online $38,490 4 67% 32.6

What This Guide Counts As The Cleveland Metro

This guide follows the Cleveland metropolitan statistical area. Two institutions are in Cleveland and Ursuline College is in Pepper Pike, about twenty minutes east. Akron and Kent are deliberately excluded and the reason is worth reading: they are commonly treated as part of one north-east Ohio region, and the census delineates them as a separate metropolitan area, so this guide does not fold them in.

Municipalities Included

  • Cleveland, OH
  • Pepper Pike, OH

Deliberately Not Included

  • Akron and Kent, OH The Akron metropolitan area, separately delineated, with two accredited institutions of its own. The two cities are often spoken of together as one region; the census does not delineate them that way.
  • North Canton, OH The Canton-Massillon metro, about an hour south.
  • Toledo and Sylvania, OH The Toledo metro, at the other end of the state.

The Best 3 DNP Programs In Cleveland, Ranked

Every scored institution above, with what it publishes and what it does not.

Ranked 1 of 3

Cleveland State University

Cleveland, OH

57.1 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Public
  • Doctorate (professional)

Cleveland State runs two entry points into the doctorate and three destinations: family practice and psychiatric mental health for people wanting certification, and a health systems leadership route open to nurses who already hold a master’s, which the university puts at two years and teaches entirely online. Two practical conditions come before any of that. Your state has to appear on the university’s authorization list for online enrollment, and the school points you at that list rather than assuming. And every online student, whatever their residency, pays a per-credit eLearning fee on top of tuition plus a one-off program fee in the first semester. Small charges, but they are not in the headline number.

In-State Tuition
$12,872
Out-Of-State
$18,392
DNP Awards
6
UG Completion
51%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 100
  • Established program 20.4
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 0

Visit Cleveland State University →

Ranked 2 of 3

Case Western Reserve University

Cleveland, OH

50 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Private nonprofit
  • Doctorate (professional)

Case Western teaches in an intensive format that changes what part-time means: a three-credit course meets for five or six days rather than weekly across a semester. If you can free up a week, you can take a course. If your roster gives you scattered evenings instead, this is a poor fit. Which sequence you choose also decides where you have to be. The education and executive leadership sequences run remote and synchronous in a cohort, while the practice leadership sequence is primarily in person, so picking a sequence for its content means picking a travel commitment with it. Read those two things together. The post-master’s curriculum assumes you already practice as an advanced practice nurse, an administrator or an educator.

In-State Tuition
$66,020
Out-Of-State
$66,020
DNP Awards
29
UG Completion
87%

Scored on

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

Visit Case Western Reserve University →

Ranked 3 of 3

Ursuline College

Pepper Pike, OH

32.6 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Private nonprofit
  • Doctorate (professional)
  • Offered online

Ursuline sets your DNP residency hours per student rather than per program. The college states that the clinical hours required will be determined from your previous education and experience together with the requirements of the specialty you pick, so two people admitted the same year can owe materially different amounts. That is worth settling in writing before you enroll, because it is the variable that decides how long the degree actually takes you. It is a small private college of under a thousand students near Cleveland, its federal filing flags the program for distance study, and it confers a small number of doctorates a year, so expect a compact cohort rather than a large one.

In-State Tuition
$38,490
Out-Of-State
$38,490
DNP Awards
4
UG Completion
67%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 51.8
  • Established program 0
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 44.4

Visit Ursuline College →

Choosing A DNP Program In Cleveland

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

What Cleveland State University charges depends on where you live

It is the one public institution in the Cleveland metro publishing both rates, at $12,872 in state against $18,392 out of state, a difference of $5,520 a year. Residency is set by the state under its own rules rather than by where you sit to watch a lecture, so an out-of-state applicant should treat that gap as the first question rather than a footnote.

A field of 3 is small enough to contact all of it

Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland State University and Ursuline College are the accredited doctorates in the Cleveland metro, which is few enough that writing to every one of them is a morning's work rather than a project. It is also the fastest way to learn what no program page prints: who secures your clinical placement, what the school charges if a doctoral project runs past its term, and which tracks are open to new applicants this cycle. Against a field this size, a reply beats a rubric.

The Ohio 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.

Ursuline College carries the distance flag

1 of the 3 measured institutions in the Cleveland metro 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.

A metro is a commute, and Ohio is the field

This page covers the institutions inside the Cleveland area because a campus you can reach on a weekday is a different proposition from one you cannot. It is a narrower field than the one you are actually choosing from: DNP programs in Ohio carries every accredited institution in the state, and for a program you would attend at a distance the metro boundary means nothing at all.

Who Licenses You In The Cleveland 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.

Ohio
Reduced Practice
Ohio Board of Nursing

Every institution on this page sits in Ohio, so one board licenses all of them and AANP classifies the jurisdiction as reduced 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 Ohio . 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.

What The Work Pays In The Cleveland Metro

BLS OEWS, May 2025, metropolitan area cut for Cleveland, OH, read 2026-09-10. 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.

OccupationMedian, Cleveland metroEmployedNational median
Nurse Practitioners29-1171$130,8003,320$132,300
Nurse Anesthetists29-1151$231,830390$236,590
Registered Nurses29-1141$83,94028,240$97,550
Nursing Instructors and Teachers, Postsecondary25-1072$68,580610$80,250

Nurse practitioners in the Cleveland metro have a median of $130,800, across about 3,320 of them, which is within $1,500 of the national $132,300.

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. The metropolitan cut is a different survey area from the state one, so these figures will not reconcile with the state page and are not meant to. How BLS defines these areas .

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.

Ohio, designated areas
209
Ohio, of those rural
81

These figures cover Ohio in full rather than the Cleveland 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: Ohio.

Studying From Outside The Cleveland Metro

1 of the 3 accredited doctorates in the Cleveland 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 Cleveland metro this cycle, and whether it will place you for supervised clinical hours near where you live.

Which Cleveland 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 the published price is what decides it: Cleveland State University

The lowest published in-state rate among Cleveland's publics, at $12,872 a year. An annual rate, not a program total, and it assumes residency.

If you are moving to Cleveland: settle residency before you apply

Cleveland State University publishes a $5,520 annual gap between its in-state and out-of-state rates, the widest of the 1 Cleveland public publishing both. Start with the registrar, not admissions.

If you already hold an advanced practice credential: Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve 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: Ursuline College

Ursuline College 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.

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 Cleveland?

3 institutions in the Cleveland metro hold CCNE accreditation for the Doctor of Nursing Practice. This guide counts the Cleveland, OH metropolitan statistical area rather than the city limits, so the figure includes institutions in 2 municipalities.

What counts as the Cleveland metro on this page?

The Cleveland, OH metropolitan statistical area. In practice that means these municipalities: Cleveland, OH; Pepper Pike, OH. Places deliberately left out are listed on this page with the reason.

Is it cheaper to study for a DNP in Cleveland 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 Cleveland, OH 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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