Best DNP Programs

Columbus metro

Best DNP Programs In Columbus 2026

Two accredited institutions with federal figures, both private and both flagged for distance study, in a metro whose largest university is accredited but unmeasured.
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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 2.9 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

    Output is concentrated in one school. Mount Carmel College of Nursing conferred 7 of the 11 DNP awards recorded across this metro, with Franklin University next at 4. A number that lopsided says where the cohorts and the placement relationships are, which a ranking position does not.

  4. 4

    Every measured program is distance-flagged. Which says less than it sounds: the flag covers taught content only. The supervised hours happen in person with a preceptor wherever you enroll, and campus days are the school's to set.

Both Measured Programs Are Private, Small And Taught At A Distance

Mount Carmel College of Nursing conferred 7 DNP awards in the reporting year and Franklin University conferred 4. Both are private nonprofit institutions and both are flagged for distance education in the federal survey, so the measured field in this metro is two small distance-friendly programs rather than one large campus one.

They are unalike underneath that. Mount Carmel enrolls 670 students in total and is a specialist nursing college; Franklin enrolls 9,457 and is a broad adult-education university. Mount Carmel publishes $27,600 and Franklin publishes $9,552, so the specialist college is close to three times the price of the generalist one.

Neither figure should be read as a verdict on the metro. Ohio State runs an accredited DNP in this city and publishes no federal figures for it, so the two programs below are the measured field rather than the whole one, and a Columbus reader should treat this list as a starting point rather than a census.

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. 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 Columbus 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 2 Franklin University Columbus, OH · Private nonprofit · offered online $9,552 4 11% 50
2 of 2 Mount Carmel College of Nursing Columbus, OH · Private nonprofit · offered online $27,600 7 54% 50

What This Guide Counts As The Columbus Metro

This guide follows the Columbus, OH metropolitan statistical area. Two institutions here publish enough for this site to score them and a third, Ohio State University, holds accreditation without federal figures and therefore cannot appear in the ranked table. That is stated above the list rather than buried, because a reader in Columbus will notice the absence before anything else on this page.

Municipalities Included

  • Columbus, OH

Deliberately Not Included

  • Ohio State University Accredited, in this city, and absent from the table below. The federal survey publishes no DNP figures for it, and this site can neither score nor place an institution it holds no figures for. It is a real option in Columbus and it is not a gap in the city; it is a gap in the data.
  • Columbus, GA and Columbus, MS Two other cities of the same name, one with an accredited institution. Mississippi University for Women is in Columbus, Mississippi and is not in this guide. This list is matched on the city and the state together rather than on the name.
  • Westerville, Dublin and Delaware, OH Inside the metro and carrying no institution in the accredited dataset.

The Best 2 DNP Programs In Columbus, Ranked

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

Ranked 1 of 2

Franklin University

Columbus, OH

50 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Private nonprofit
  • Doctorate (research)
  • Offered online

Franklin publishes what it will take off your plate, which is rarer than it should be and worth checking before you apply anywhere else. An eligible master’s holder can transfer up to 500 practicum hours and up to 12 credit hours of coursework, and practicum hours sit inside the courses rather than being arranged separately, which is how the leadership track lands at about two years. The practitioner tracks run longer: roughly three years for family, psychiatric mental health and adult-gerontology primary care if you already hold a master’s, and three to four years coming from a bachelor’s. All of it is online. Franklin confers a small number of nursing doctorates a year, so this is a route built around transfer credit and pace rather than a large cohort.

In-State Tuition
$9,552
Out-Of-State
$9,552
DNP Awards
4
UG Completion
11%

Scored on

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

Visit Franklin University →

Ranked 2 of 2

Mount Carmel College of Nursing

Columbus, OH

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

Mount Carmel inverts the usual order: your specialty track is decided by the evidence-based practice project you end up doing, rather than chosen at application. You commit to the program first and the specialization follows from the work, which suits someone who knows the problem they want to solve better than the label they want on it. The program runs as a cohort over 18 months and five semesters, online, and the project can be carried out in your own workplace. Admission is stricter than most: a 3.25 cumulative graduate grade point average, and two references of which at least one must be doctorally prepared and one must come from a nurse holding a master’s or a doctorate.

In-State Tuition
$27,600
Out-Of-State
$27,600
DNP Awards
7
UG Completion
54%

Scored on

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

Visit Mount Carmel College of Nursing →

Choosing A DNP Program In Columbus

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

Franklin University and Mount Carmel College of Nursing are the whole of the field in Columbus

Franklin University and Mount Carmel College of Nursing 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 Ohio board of nursing rather than to the school.

Who Licenses You In The Columbus 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.

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 Columbus 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 Columbus Metro

Most of the measured field here is distance-flagged, 2 of 2 accredited doctorates in the Columbus metro, so the question is less whether you can study at a distance and more whether an out-of-state program offers anything the local ones do not. 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 Columbus metro this cycle, and whether it will place you for supervised clinical hours near where you live.

Which Columbus 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: Franklin University states that route

Franklin University's own pages name a bachelor's entry. Others in Columbus 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: Franklin University

Franklin 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: 2 institutions here carry the distance flag

Franklin University, Mount Carmel College of Nursing carry it. 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 Columbus 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 Columbus?

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

What counts as the Columbus metro on this page?

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

Is it cheaper to study for a DNP in Columbus 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 Columbus, 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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