Best DNP Programs

Honolulu metro

Best DNP Programs In Honolulu 2026

Three accredited institutions on one island, and the only metro on this site where there is no neighboring metro to fall back on.
An aerial view of a wide volcanic crater open on one side, ridged brown slopes running down to a coast road and turquoise water, with housing filling the valleys behind
On this page

Key Takeaways

  1. 1

    Price will not narrow this list. The published in-state rates here sit inside a band of roughly 3.0 times, which is tight for a metro. That pushes the decision onto track, cohort size and who arranges the clinical placement.

  2. 2

    1 public, 2 private, and the cheap end is public. University of Hawaii at Manoa publishes $11,304 in-state, against $30,760 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

    University of Hawaii at Manoa is most of this metro. It conferred 53 of the 69 DNP awards recorded here, which is 77% of them, against 14 at Hawaii Pacific University. Treat the others as genuinely small programs rather than as alternatives of a similar size.

  4. 4

    2 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.

There Is No Next Metro Over

Every other guide on this site can end with the same advice: if nothing here fits, the next metro is an hour or two down the road. This page cannot. The three institutions in Honolulu are the accredited field within any commute, and the nearest alternative on the mainland is a flight of five hours or more.

That makes residency unusually expensive to get wrong. The University of Hawaii at Manoa publishes $11,304 a year in-state and $33,336 out-of-state, so the doctorate costs about three times as much for someone who has not established residency, and there is no adjacent state where establishing it is a plausible alternative. It also conferred 53 of the 69 doctorates recorded here, so the cheapest option and the largest are the same school.

The other two are private, which means they charge one rate wherever a reader lives: Hawaii Pacific University at $33,792 and Chaminade University of Honolulu at $30,760. For someone moving to Oahu without residency those two are priced within about $500 of Manoa’s out-of-state rate, which is a genuinely close three-way comparison and not one the in-state column would suggest.

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 Honolulu 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 University of Hawaii at Manoa Honolulu, HI · Public $11,304 53 64% 100
2 of 3 Hawaii Pacific University Honolulu, HI · Private nonprofit · offered online $33,792 14 35% 26.1
3 of 3 Chaminade University of Honolulu Honolulu, HI · Private nonprofit · offered online $30,760 2 55% 17.1

What This Guide Counts As The Honolulu Metro

This guide follows the Urban Honolulu metropolitan statistical area, which covers the island of Oahu. All three institutions are in Honolulu. Hilo is excluded because it is on a different island: every other guide on this site excludes places that are an hour or two away by road, and here the nearest excluded institution is a flight.

Municipalities Included

  • Honolulu, HI

Deliberately Not Included

  • Hilo, HI On the island of Hawaii, a separate metropolitan area and a flight rather than a commute, with an accredited institution of its own.

The Best 3 DNP Programs In Honolulu, Ranked

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

Ranked 1 of 3

University of Hawaii at Manoa

Honolulu, HI

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

Hawaii coordinates clinical placements for its clinical tracks rather than leaving you to find them, and those placements include rural and neighbor island sites serving underserved communities, which is a genuinely different clinical experience from a single urban hospital rotation. The doctoral project is expected to address a real health challenge in Hawaii, so the work is tied to place rather than portable. The application window is unusually long: for a fall 2027 start, master’s and doctoral applications open on 1 September 2026 and close 1 May 2027. The school also runs a graduate entry program for people coming into nursing from another field, and it enrolled its first research doctorate cohort in fall 2026.

In-State Tuition
$11,304
Out-Of-State
$33,336
DNP Awards
53
UG Completion
64%

Scored on

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

Visit University of Hawaii at Manoa →

Ranked 2 of 3

Hawaii Pacific University

Honolulu, HI

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

Hawaii Pacific teaches the coursework entirely online and keeps the practicum in person, which is the honest version of what most online doctorates actually are. Two entries run, one from a bachelor’s in nursing and one from a master’s. The unit became a school of nursing in its own right in January 2022, so the doctorate sits inside something relatively young and visibly still building. Further down the ladder it runs a route for military hospital corpsmen to convert service experience into a bachelor’s, which is unusual and says something about who the school serves. The Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education accredits the bachelor’s, the master’s, the doctorate and the post-graduate certificates.

In-State Tuition
$33,792
Out-Of-State
$33,792
DNP Awards
14
UG Completion
35%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 0
  • Established program 74.5
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 0

Visit Hawaii Pacific University →

Ranked 3 of 3

Chaminade University of Honolulu

Honolulu, HI

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

Chaminade’s doctorate is new and built around Hawaii. The program runs online from a bachelor’s through a master’s to the doctorate, with a stated focus on the populations of the islands, and it carries a mandatory on-campus fall immersion, so fully remote it is not. The tracks split by what you want to become: practitioner routes for nurses holding a bachelor’s, and an executive leader track a master’s-prepared nurse can enter directly. One condition catches people out and the college states it plainly. Clinical placement partners require full vaccination including boosters before you begin clinical courses, and there is no route through the program without it. Applications for a fall start open around 15 October.

In-State Tuition
$30,760
Out-Of-State
$30,760
DNP Awards
2
UG Completion
55%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 13.5
  • Established program 0
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 69

Visit Chaminade University of Honolulu →

Choosing A DNP Program In Honolulu

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

What University of Hawaii at Manoa charges depends on where you live

It is the one public institution in the Honolulu metro publishing both rates, at $11,304 in state against $33,336 out of state, a difference of $22,032 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

Chaminade University of Honolulu, Hawaii Pacific University and University of Hawaii at Manoa are the accredited doctorates in the Honolulu 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 Hawaii 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.

Chaminade University of Honolulu and Hawaii Pacific University carry the distance flag

2 of the 3 measured institutions in the Honolulu 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 Hawaii is the field

This page covers the institutions inside the Honolulu 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 Hawaii 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 Honolulu 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.

Hawaii
Full Practice
Hawaii Board of Nursing

Every institution on this page sits in Hawaii, so one board licenses all of them and AANP classifies the jurisdiction as full 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 Hawaii . 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 Honolulu Metro

BLS OEWS, May 2025, metropolitan area cut for Urban Honolulu, HI, 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, Honolulu metroEmployedNational median
Nurse Practitioners29-1171$135,570400$132,300
Registered Nurses29-1141$139,2609,680$97,550

2 occupations have no metro figure at all here: nurse anesthetists and nursing instructors and teachers, postsecondary. That is not a suppressed cell. BLS produces no estimate for them in this metropolitan area, so there is nothing being withheld and nothing to fall back on at metro level. Nationally the medians are $236,590 and $80,250, and the state figures below are the nearest published comparison.

Nurse practitioners in the Honolulu metro have a median of $135,570, across about 400 of them, $3,270 above 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.

Hawaii, designated areas
33
Hawaii, of those rural
17

These figures cover Hawaii in full rather than the Honolulu 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: Hawaii.

Studying From Outside The Honolulu Metro

Most of the measured field here is distance-flagged, 2 of 3 accredited doctorates in the Honolulu 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 Honolulu metro this cycle, and whether it will place you for supervised clinical hours near where you live.

Which Honolulu 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: University of Hawaii at Manoa

The lowest published in-state rate among Honolulu's publics, at $11,304 a year. An annual rate, not a program total, and it assumes residency.

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

University of Hawaii at Manoa publishes a $22,032 annual gap between its in-state and out-of-state rates, the widest of the 1 Honolulu public publishing both. Start with the registrar, not admissions.

If you already hold an advanced practice credential: Chaminade University of Honolulu

Chaminade University of Honolulu 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

Chaminade University of Honolulu, Hawaii Pacific University 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.

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 Honolulu?

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

What counts as the Honolulu metro on this page?

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

Is it cheaper to study for a DNP in Honolulu 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 Urban Honolulu, HI 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.

Compare accredited DNP programs

Browse all programs