Best DNP Programs

Connecticut

Best DNP Programs In Connecticut 2026

7 institutions in Connecticut hold CCNE accreditation for the Doctor of Nursing Practice. Published in-state graduate tuition among them starts at $16,971 a year, at University of Saint Joseph.
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Key Takeaways

  1. 1

    Connecticut is a small field. Only 5 schools here carry enough published figures to be scored, so a position says how one compares to its in-state neighbors and nothing about how it compares nationally.

  2. 2

    In-state rates sit in a narrow band. The 5 Connecticut institutions that publish an annual in-state rate run from $16,971 to $34,060, the highest only about 2.0 times the lowest, so cost separates them less here than it does nationally.

  3. 3

    Mostly private institutions. 4 of the 5 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.

  4. 4

    Distance study is the exception here. Only 1 of the 5 carry the federal distance-education flag, so studying at a distance from Connecticut 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.

How This Ranking Is Scored

Three published figures, weighted. Scores are relative to the 5 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 5 DNP Programs In Connecticut, 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 5 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 Connecticut, with what the federal record publishes for it and how its score was composed.

Ranked 1 of 5

Quinnipiac University

Hamden, CT

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

Quinnipiac runs a fully online post-master’s doctorate with a floor of 36 credits, and floor is the operative word: additional courses get added depending on what your master’s covered and how the project progresses. The published number is a starting point rather than a total. The project courses carry 260 hours, and there are separate practicum sequences for leadership and for population health, so the practical work is split across two different kinds of setting rather than concentrated in one. Applications are rolling, with final deadlines roughly two weeks before classes start, which is unusually late and genuinely useful if you are deciding on a compressed timeline. You need an unencumbered registered nurse or advanced practice license to apply.

Tuition
$17,172
In-state
Tuition
$17,172
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
52
Completion
76%
Undergraduate
About the tuition figures
School-wide graduate average, 2023-24. Excludes DNP add-on charges.

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 98.8
  • Established program 100
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 60

Visit Quinnipiac University →

Ranked 2 of 5

University of Connecticut

Storrs, CT

80.7 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Public
  • Professional practice doctorate

Connecticut calls its doctorate online and then names the two dates you cannot miss: intensive sessions on the Storrs campus in August and in January. Budget for those trips before anything else. Two entry points run, one from a bachelor’s and one from a master’s for nurses already licensed and certified in an advanced practice role. The post-master’s route carries a requirement the other does not: verification of 2,080 direct patient care hours as a registered nurse, on a form, completed before you apply. That is a full year of full-time practice, evidenced rather than asserted. Admission wants a nursing bachelor’s from a regionally accredited institution, a 3.0 undergraduate average and three references.

Tuition
$18,834
In-state
Tuition
$40,746
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
14
Completion
83%
Undergraduate
About the tuition figures
School-wide graduate average, 2023-24. Excludes DNP add-on charges.

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 89.1
  • Established program 62.5
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 95

Visit University of Connecticut →

Ranked 3 of 5

Fairfield University

Fairfield, CT

54.3 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 78.6
  • Established program 0
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 100

Visit Fairfield University →

Ranked 4 of 5

University of Saint Joseph

West Hartford, CT

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

Saint Joseph attaches a deadline to your own history that almost no school does. If you finished a master’s in nursing here and enroll within three years of completing it, the doctorate is six courses and 18 credits across three semesters. Leave it longer and you are on the standard route, 45 credits over two to four years against a plan of study the program approves. Three years is the whole difference between a year of study and three, so if you are weighing whether to keep going, the clock is already running. Admission wants a 3.2 in the master’s, a certification form documenting your previous supervised clinical hours signed by that program’s director, and an essay about a health issue in your own community.

Tuition
$16,971
In-state
Tuition
$16,971
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
6
Completion
64%
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 10.5
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 0

Visit University of Saint Joseph →

Ranked 5 of 5

Sacred Heart University

Fairfield, CT

41.8 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 45

Visit Sacred Heart University →

Also Accredited In Connecticut

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.

  • University of Hartford CCNE-accredited DNP

    Hartford designs its doctorate around nurses who keep working, and the structure shows it: courses run seven weeks, most students take six credits each fall, spring and summer, and the practicum requirement is 500 or more hours. Admission is for a fall start only, so a missed application costs a year. The published per-credit rate is $1,093 for summer 2026 through spring 2027, which is one of the few figures on this page you can multiply against a real credit plan. Hartford also offers a DNP scholarship worth 15% of tuition to applicants who did not do their undergraduate work there, renewable as long as you hold a 3.0 and stay enrolled in six credits a semester.

  • Yale University CCNE-accredited DNP

    Yale runs two doctorates and both are post-master's, which is the first thing to settle because it rules the school out if you are entering from a bachelor's. One is a healthcare leadership, systems and policy track aimed at mid-career nurses moving into leadership. The other is a clinical doctorate for nurses who already hold an advanced practice master's. The school describes work done on campus and in the field, so this is not a distance degree. What Yale does not put on its program pages is the arithmetic: no credit total, no length, no clinical hour requirement, no deadline. Its admissions office publishes those on request, and for a school this selective the conversation is worth having early anyway.

Choosing A DNP Program In Connecticut

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

What University of Connecticut charges depends on where you live

It is the one public institution in Connecticut publishing both rates, at $18,834 in state against $40,746 out of state, a difference of $21,912 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.

The Connecticut 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.

Sacred Heart University carries the distance flag

1 of the 5 measured institutions in Connecticut 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

University of Hartford and Yale University 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.

Who Licenses You In Connecticut

Practice environment, as AANP classifies it
Full Practice
Licensing body
Connecticut Board of Nurse Licensure
Verify a license
Nursys, the national license verification system operated by the boards themselves

AANP places Connecticut in its full practice category, which it defines this way: state law lets nurse practitioners evaluate patients, diagnose, order and interpret tests, and initiate and manage treatments including prescribing medications and controlled substances, under the exclusive licensure authority of the state board of nursing.

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 with the board is the licensure route itself: what it accepts as an equivalent program, which certification it recognizes for your track, and how long endorsement takes if you are licensed elsewhere. Endorsement runs to months, and it is the step people leave until after they have accepted a place.

Practice environment from AANP's Connecticut 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 Connecticut

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.

OccupationMedian, ConnecticutEmployedRankNational median
Nurse practitioners29-1171$138,4703,7509 of 51$132,300
Nurse anesthetists29-1151$236,96048028 of 44$236,590
Registered nurses29-1141$102,74040,11010 of 51$97,550
Nursing Instructors and Teachers, Postsecondary25-1072$95,5001,3805 of 51$80,250

Nurse practitioners in Connecticut have a median of $138,470, which ranks 9 of the 51 jurisdictions the survey publishes a median for, across about 3,750 people in the state. That sits in the upper third of the jurisdictions the survey covers, and the cost of living behind it is not in the figure.

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
41
Of those, rural
4
Median score
17
Highest score
21

Unusually, most of the designated shortage in Connecticut is not rural. Only 4 of the 41 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.

Priority varies between them: a median score of 17 against a highest of 21. Worth asking what a specific site scores rather than assuming the state figure applies to it.

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 Connecticut

1 of the 7 accredited doctorates in Connecticut 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 Connecticut 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 5 institutions with federal figures here, 1 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.

One institution here is 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 Connecticut. The degree-wide questions are answered on the guides.

How many DNP programs are there in Connecticut?

7, and the cheapest published rate belongs to a private institution: University of Saint Joseph at $16,971 against Sacred Heart University at $34,060. That inverts the assumption most applicants arrive with, because a private school charges one rate wherever you live while a public one prices residency.

How much does a DNP cost in Connecticut?

From $16,971 to $34,060 in published in-state rates, so roughly double across the state. Wide enough to matter and narrow enough that it should not be the only cut you make.

Is a DNP cheaper in Connecticut if you live there?

Yes, by $21,912 a year at the widest of the 1 public institution 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 Connecticut?

AANP puts Connecticut in its full practice category, the least restricted of the three: state law lets nurse practitioners evaluate, diagnose, order and interpret tests and prescribe under the board's own licensure authority. That is AANP reading the statute, not a federal designation, and legislation moves it.

What do nurse practitioners earn in Connecticut?

A median of $138,470, $6,170 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 Connecticut?

It can, and unusually it is not a rural question here: only 4 of the 41 designations are rural. The approved site that qualifies you is as likely to be a city clinic as a country one.

Can you study for a DNP online in Connecticut?

1 of the 5 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.

  1. 1 CCNE Accredited Program Directory It decides which institutions appear on this page at all: the 7 in Connecticut below are the ones it lists as holding current accreditation for the Doctor of Nursing Practice.
  2. 2 IPEDS 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 Connecticut, 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.

  1. 1

    Fairfield University

    Fairfield, CT · Private nonprofit · carries federal figures

  2. 2

    Quinnipiac University

    Hamden, CT · Private nonprofit · carries federal figures

  3. 3

    Sacred Heart University

    Fairfield, CT · Private nonprofit · carries federal figures

  4. 4

    University of Connecticut

    Storrs, CT · Public · carries federal figures

  5. 5

    University of Hartford

    On the CCNE roster; no federal record under a nursing doctoral classification, so no directory address and no figures

  6. 6

    University of Saint Joseph

    West Hartford, CT · Private nonprofit · carries federal figures

  7. 7

    Yale University

    On the CCNE roster; no federal record under a nursing doctoral classification, so no directory address and no figures

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