Best DNP Programs

Georgia

Best DNP Programs In Georgia 2026

9 institutions in Georgia hold CCNE accreditation for the Doctor of Nursing Practice. Published in-state graduate tuition among them starts at $4,572 a year, at Valdosta State University.
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Key Takeaways

  1. 1

    Georgia 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 vary enormously here. Published annual in-state graduate tuition among the 5 Georgia institutions that report one runs from $4,572 to $46,800, a 10-fold spread inside one state and one reporting year.

  3. 3

    Mostly private institutions. 3 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

    Some are delivered at a distance. 2 of the 5 carry the federal distance-education flag, which covers coursework and never the supervised practice hours.

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 Georgia, 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 Georgia, with what the federal record publishes for it and how its score was composed.

Ranked 1 of 5

Georgia College & State University

Milledgeville, GA

78.2 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Public
  • Professional practice doctorate
  • Offered online

Georgia College runs its DNP as three years of full-time study across nine semesters. That is a fixed shape rather than a range, so you can plan against it from the day you apply, which is more than most schools give you. The flexibility sits in the transfer rule instead: up to nine credit hours can come across from prior graduate work, but that is at the joint discretion of the program advisor, the coordinator and the department chair rather than an entitlement. Three people have to agree, so treat it as a conversation to have before you apply rather than a box to tick afterwards. The federal filing flags the program for distance study.

Tuition
$5,292
In-state
Tuition
$18,846
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
7
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 98.3
  • Established program 54
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 67.9

Visit Georgia College & State University →

Ranked 2 of 5

Valdosta State University

Valdosta, GA

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

Valdosta State runs a post-master’s doctorate at 38 credit hours over five semesters, online, aimed at advanced practice nurses who are still working. The unusual provision sits in the bachelor’s-entry route: you can opt out at semester seven with a master’s in hand, then return within three years to finish the last three semesters and take the doctorate. That is an exit with something to show for it, which matters if your circumstances change midway, and very few schools build one in. School-wide average graduate tuition here, which excludes DNP add-on charges, sits in the cheapest tenth of the 306 accredited institutions that publish a rate, in the 2023-24 federal figures, and the out-of-state rate is about 3.5 times the in-state one, so residency matters a great deal.

Tuition
$4,572
In-state
Tuition
$16,470
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
8
Completion
42%
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 58.6
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 41.7

Visit Valdosta State University →

Ranked 3 of 5

South University-Savannah Online

Savannah, GA

71.4 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Private for-profit
  • Professional practice doctorate
  • Offered online

South University sets a deadline that catches people out: official documentation of the clinical hours you completed after your bachelor’s has to be submitted within five weeks of your start date. Five weeks is not long to get a former program to certify a transcript detail, so start that request before you enroll rather than after. The doctorate runs online, and by output it is one of the larger nursing doctorates in the country, so the program itself is well established. The federal file also records a 7 percent graduation rate for the institution as a whole. That figure is undergraduate-weighted rather than a measure of this doctorate, and it is the sort of number to ask about directly before committing.

Tuition
$16,056
In-state
Tuition
$16,056
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
48
Completion
7%
Undergraduate
About the tuition figures
School-wide graduate average, 2023-24. Excludes DNP add-on charges.

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 72.8
  • Established program 100
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 0

Visit South University-Savannah Online →

Ranked 4 of 5

Emory University

Atlanta, GA

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

Emory takes you in at two points, from a bachelor’s or an entry-level master’s in nursing, or from a master’s you already hold, and the pace depends on which specialty and which entry you pick rather than being fixed for everyone. Delivery is distance-based: online courses broken by in-person intensives, so plan on traveling to Atlanta on a schedule the specialty sets. There is also a master of nursing pathway for people coming into nursing from another field who intend to continue to the doctorate, which makes this one of the few places you can start as a non-nurse and finish with a practice doctorate. Emory files a nurse anesthesia specialty beside the general one. 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.

Tuition
$46,800
In-state
Tuition
$46,800
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
17
Completion
91%
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 85.7
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 100

Visit Emory University →

Ranked 5 of 5

Brenau University

Gainesville, GA

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

Brenau runs two doctorates side by side, one for advanced practice nurses and one for leadership and management, both scoped to people who already hold a master’s in nursing. The structure is published semester by semester: the leadership route runs six semesters, the advanced practice route seven. What both share is how the project is handled, as a four-course sequence covering identification, development, implementation, and outcomes evaluation with dissemination, each carrying one-to-one faculty mentorship. Splitting the project across four graded courses rather than leaving it as a capstone means the work gets paced for you instead of piling up at the end. The Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education granted the school’s bachelor’s, master’s and post-master’s acute care certificate a full ten-year accreditation running to September 2030.

Tuition
$14,130
In-state
Tuition
$14,130
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
1
Completion
33%
Undergraduate
About the tuition figures
School-wide graduate average, 2023-24. Excludes DNP add-on charges.

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 77.4
  • Established program 0
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 31

Visit Brenau University →

Also Accredited In Georgia

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.

  • Augusta University CCNE-accredited DNP

    Augusta established Georgia's first doctorate in nursing practice in 2005, and it runs the widest set of tracks in the state: family, adult-gerontology acute care, pediatric, psychiatric mental health and nurse anesthesia. Two conditions are worth settling before you apply. Admission wants an active unrestricted Georgia RN license or eligibility for one, so an out-of-state nurse has an extra step. And the college states that the program meets the initial licensure requirements in every state and territory except Idaho, Maryland and Michigan, which is the kind of specific exclusion no ranking can tell you. Practitioner students attend a multi-day on-campus intensive. Applications for Fall 2027 open August 6, 2026 and close May 15, 2027.

  • Georgia Southern University CCNE-accredited DNP

    Georgia Southern runs its post-master's doctorate entirely online across six semesters, and the catalog puts the credit requirement at 77. Most of the coursework is asynchronous, which is the format that fits shift work, but selected courses schedule live sessions, so it is not a degree you can take entirely on your own clock. Admission wants a master's with an advanced practice focus, a 3.0 graduate GPA, an introductory statistics course passed at C or better and three references. The date to hold is March 1, which is the deadline for the summer cohort. The clinical requirement follows the national standard of at least 500 additional hours after a master's.

  • Georgia State University CCNE-accredited DNP

    Georgia State's doctorate is hybrid, and it publishes the campus commitment in a form you can hold against a roster: web-facilitated classes plus one on-campus day at the start of each fall and spring semester. The graduate coursework minimum is 39 semester hours. Entry is open from either a bachelor's or a master's, and the deadlines differ by route, which catches people out. Fall closes June 30 for both routes. Spring closes November 15 and takes the bachelor's route only. There is no summer intake at all. If you hold a master's and miss June 30, the next door is a full year away rather than a semester.

  • Mercer University CCNE-accredited DNP

    Mercer publishes the full semester-by-semester plan for each track, which is rare and genuinely useful, because it shows you the load rather than a total. The post-master's psychiatric mental health route opens at eight credits in the fall, rises to twelve in the spring, then drops to seven over the summer, so the heaviest term arrives second rather than first. Immersion hours are attached to named courses in blocks of 60 rather than pooled, so you can see exactly when practice time lands. Graduates sit the psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner certification exam through either the ANCC or the AANP certification board. An acute care track runs on the same core with its own plan.

Choosing A DNP Program In Georgia

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

Settle your residency before you compare anything else

Across the 2 public institutions in Georgia publishing both rates, the out-of-state rate runs a median of 3.6 times the in-state one. At Georgia College & State University the gap is $13,554 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.

The Georgia 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.

Georgia College & State University and South University-Savannah Online carry the distance flag

2 of the 5 measured institutions in Georgia 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

4 accredited institutions in Georgia 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 Georgia

Practice environment, as AANP classifies it
Restricted Practice
Licensing body
Georgia Board of Nursing
Verify a license
Nursys, the national license verification system operated by the boards themselves

AANP places Georgia 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 Georgia 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 Georgia

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, GeorgiaEmployedRankNational median
Nurse practitioners29-1171$129,43010,46037 of 51$132,300
Nurse anesthetists29-1151$224,6301,17030 of 44$236,590
Registered nurses29-1141$93,550100,95027 of 51$97,550
Nursing Instructors and Teachers, Postsecondary25-1072$77,7201,59037 of 51$80,250

Nurse practitioners in Georgia have a median of $129,430, which ranks 37 of the 51 jurisdictions the survey publishes a median for, across about 10,460 people in the state. That sits in the lower third of the jurisdictions the survey publishes, which is worth setting against local costs before reading it as a verdict.

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
201
Of those, rural
145
Median score
19
Highest score
24

Most designated shortage in Georgia is rural, 145 of 201 designations, but the remaining 56 sit in urban and suburban areas, so eligibility is not only a country question here. 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 19 against a highest of 24. 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 Georgia

2 of the 9 accredited doctorates in Georgia 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 Georgia 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, 2 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.

2 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 Georgia. The degree-wide questions are answered on the guides.

How many DNP programs are there in Georgia?

9 hold CCNE accreditation for the doctorate, and 4 of them file conferrals under a specialty classification, so they are listed by name rather than scored. A field this size is small enough to shortlist properly and large enough that the shortlist matters.

How much does a DNP cost in Georgia?

Published in-state rates run $4,572 to $46,800, a spread of about 10.2 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 Georgia if you live there?

Sharply. Georgia College & State University publishes $5,292 in state against $18,846 out of it, 3.6 times the rate, so residency is worth more here than the difference between most of the schools on this page. Ask the registrar what establishing it takes before you assume you can.

Can a nurse practitioner practice independently in Georgia?

No. Georgia 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 Georgia?

A median of $129,430, within $2,870 of the national $132,300. Georgia pays the going rate rather than a premium or a discount, which makes the other variables the deciding ones.

Does federal loan repayment apply in Georgia?

It can, and here it mostly means rural practice: 145 of the 201 designated primary-care shortage areas are rural. Eligibility follows an approved site rather than a state, so the question belongs to the employer.

Can you study for a DNP online in Georgia?

2 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 9 in Georgia 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 Georgia, 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

    Augusta University

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

  2. 2

    Brenau University

    Gainesville, GA · Private nonprofit · carries federal figures

  3. 3

    Emory University

    Atlanta, GA · Private nonprofit · carries federal figures

  4. 4

    Georgia College & State University

    Milledgeville, GA · Public · carries federal figures

  5. 5

    Georgia Southern University

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

  6. 6

    Georgia State University

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

  7. 7

    Mercer University

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

  8. 8

    South University

    Savannah, GA · Private for-profit · carries federal figures · filed federally as South University-Savannah Online

  9. 9

    Valdosta State University

    Valdosta, GA · Public · carries federal figures

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