18 institutions in Illinois hold CCNE accreditation for the Doctor of Nursing Practice. Published in-state graduate tuition among them starts at $7,700 a year, at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
The score is a local one.Positions are worked out against the 15 scored institutions in Illinois and not against the country, so a program near the top here sits somewhere else entirely on the national list.
2
In-state rates vary enormously here.Published annual in-state graduate tuition among the 15 Illinois institutions that report one runs from $7,700 to $38,013, a 5-fold spread inside one state and one reporting year.
3
Mostly private institutions.11 of the 15 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.
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Distance study is the norm here.10 of the 15 carry the federal distance-education flag, which covers coursework and never the supervised practice hours.
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.
Three published figures, weighted. Scores are relative to the
15 institutions on this page and to nothing
else.
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.
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.
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 15 DNP Programs In Illinois, 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 15 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 Illinois, with what the federal record
publishes for it and how its score was composed.
Southern Illinois Edwardsville quantifies the experience requirement instead of leaving it vague: a year of full-time work, or its part-time equivalent, which the school puts at 1,872 hours, completed before you start the first specialization clinical course. It also wants your registered nurse license current in the state where you intend to do the practicum, not wherever you happen to be licensed now. The post-master’s application asks for a personal statement naming a doctoral project idea that is patient or practice focused, so you are expected to arrive with a problem in mind rather than find one later. Priority deadlines run 1 February for summer, 1 June for fall and 1 November for spring, and every doctoral student attends an immersion in the first days of the fall semester.
Illinois Chicago admits once a year, in fall, and that single intake is the first thing to plan around. The degree runs anywhere from two to six years depending on focus area, entry route and whether you study full or part time. From a master’s it is usually two to four. From a BSN it is 77 credit hours. Delivery is hybrid in the real sense rather than the marketing one, with some courses online, some blended and some on campus. The clinical requirement is 1,000 practicum hours, and in the adult-gerontology acute care focus 675 of those sit inside the specialty itself. One structural point: the college charges the same per-credit rate to residents and non-residents, so an Illinois address does not change what you pay.
Bradley publishes credits, years, semesters and clinical hours together for each route, which makes the trade explicit in a way most schools avoid. From a BSN, the adult-gerontology acute care doctorate is 68 credit hours over 10 semesters, about three years and four months, carrying the full 1,000 clinical hours. If you already hold a master’s and want the post-master’s certificate in the same specialty instead, that is 32 credits over five semesters, roughly a year and eight months, with 600 clinical hours. Half the time and under half the credits, for a certificate rather than a doctorate. The programs run online, and there is a separate RN-to-MSN entry for nurses holding an associate degree, a diploma or a bachelor’s in another field.
Chamberlain runs its DNP fully online and puts the shortest route at two years. It describes itself as the largest DNP program in the country by total graduates, which is its own claim rather than a federal one. The rule to check before you apply concerns the master’s you already hold. If you have a BSN plus a graduate degree in a field other than nursing, you must transfer in or complete at least six designated Chamberlain courses, 18 credit hours in all, before you can be admitted to the doctorate at all. That is a semester of work most applicants do not budget for. Focus areas then sit on top of the core as two elective leadership courses each.
Illinois State keeps its post-master’s doctorate compact: 34 credit hours and 360 clinical hours, taught online. Three hundred and sixty is a small clinical figure, and it only makes sense because the route assumes the bulk of your hours came with your master’s, so check what you already hold before treating it as the whole requirement. Two start points exist rather than one, with applications closing 15 April for a summer start and 15 July for fall. The college’s clinical partnerships run across central Illinois and reach past hospitals into long-term care, school districts and public health agencies, which widens the kinds of project a doctoral student can realistically take on.
Saint Francis runs its post-master’s doctorate entirely online and says plainly that students never need to come to campus, which is rarer than the phrase online program suggests. Two routes exist and they take different inputs. The clinical route wants an accredited master’s in nursing plus evidence of 500 practice hours. The leadership route accepts a nursing bachelor’s paired with a master’s in health administration or leadership, so a manager who never took a clinical master’s has a way in. State rules matter here: the college holds distance education permission for most states but not all, and an Arizona student needs a preceptor licensed in Arizona. Applications are taken year round, with priority dates of 1 April and 1 October.
DePaul teaches the whole doctorate online and asynchronously, so there is no scheduled class time to work a roster around, and it reviews applications on a rolling basis rather than holding everything to a single date. Admission conditions change by track, which makes the concentration page the one to read rather than the program page. The nurse practitioner track takes both BSN- and MSN-prepared applicants, and whichever you hold has to come from a program accredited by CCNE, ACEN or CNEA. The university says it recently put more than forty million dollars into College of Science and Health facilities, including a rebuilt nursing simulation lab. Its doctoral output sits in the upper third of accredited institutions nationally, so the online cohort is a real one rather than a side offering.
Saint Anthony sets a lower academic bar than most, asking a cumulative grade point average of 2.8 rather than the usual 3.0, which makes it a genuine option for a nurse whose transcript would rule them out elsewhere. The trade is time: the program runs part-time by design and takes four to six years depending on which option you take. Three of those exist. The adult-gerontology practitioner route is open from a bachelor’s or a master’s, the leadership route in macro and micro healthcare systems is post-master’s only, and there is a psychiatric mental health practitioner doctorate. The college is attached to a hospital system, and admission includes a background check, health history, immunization records and drug screening.
Lewis runs four clinical practitioner tracks from a bachelor’s, adult-gerontology acute and primary care, family, and psychiatric mental health, plus a leadership track for people not heading into direct practice. The delivery split rewards a close read. Coursework is online, but annual immersion events and the health assessment labs happen at the Oak Brook location, and the residency and project implementation courses happen in person at whichever practice setting you use. So this degree takes place in three different kinds of place, not one. If Oak Brook is a long trip for you, that annual commitment is the thing to price before applying, because it repeats every year rather than happening once.
Northern Illinois calculates your grade point average on the last 60 hours of your bachelor’s rather than the whole degree, which is worth knowing if you started slowly and finished well. The threshold is 3.00. It also requires a current Illinois registered nurse license at the point of application, so this is not a program you enter from another state and sort out licensure later. The master’s-to-doctorate route runs 33 to 50 credits depending on what you bring. Its federal filing carries a distance-education flag, and as an Illinois public it prices residency the way public universities usually do. Its DNP output is small against the size of the university, so expect a compact cohort inside a large institution.
Loyola attaches a certification condition to its acute care route that catches people out: every adult-gerontology acute care practitioner and clinical nurse specialist student has to obtain CCRN certification before clinical work starts. That is an exam to sit and pass on top of the application, and recent intensive care experience as a registered nurse is required to get in at all. Plan for both. The school also runs an oncology certificate alongside its other post-graduate certificates, which is a specialization few nursing schools staff. Applications to the certificate programs are accepted at any time for an upcoming open term rather than against a single annual deadline, which makes starting easier to time around work.
Saint Francis runs a 32-credit post-master’s doctorate online, taught in eight-week cycles with a new cohort starting every fall. Eight-week blocks mean fewer courses at once and each one finished faster, which is the structural reason this fits around a roster. The core carries two residency courses rather than one, so the doctoral work is split across terms instead of landing all at the end. An optional education concentration exists for people who intend to teach, and it adds a four-credit nursing education practicum. Admission wants a master’s in nursing and a 3.0 grade point average. The Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education accredits the college’s programs.
North Park runs its doctorate as a post-graduate program for nurses who already hold a master’s, and it is a light one: 33 credits across 12 courses, a minimum of 350 practicum hours, and five semesters end to end. The courses are online and written around people who are still working, so the practicum is the part that has to fit around a job rather than the coursework. Thirty-three credits is at the low end for a nursing doctorate, which is what a post-graduate route looks like once a master’s has covered the clinical core. This is a small private university in Chicago conferring only a handful of nursing doctorates a year, so expect a cohort you can count rather than a program with several tracks running at once.
Rush prices its DNP in time rather than in one number, and the three entry points are genuinely different lengths. From a BSN it runs about three and two-thirds years. From a master’s in a non-APRN role it is three years, and from a master’s as a practicing APRN it is two. The clinical practicum follows the same logic: 756 hours from a BSN or a non-APRN master’s, and between 500 and 756 for an APRN, settled by a gap analysis of what you already hold. Nurse anesthesia ignores all of that at 36 months for everyone whatever they enter with, and it is accredited by the COA rather than CCNE, re-accredited in 2025 and running to 2035.
Millikin runs a nurse anesthesia doctorate as 36 months of full-time study, which is the standard shape for that credential and not something you fit around a job. Transfer credit is capped tightly: up to 9 credit hours from another graduate program, so arriving with a partial master’s saves you three courses at most. The school also runs a master’s entry route for people holding a bachelor’s in something other than nursing, which is a genuine career change rather than an advancement path. For a university of about 1,600 students, its doctoral output against size sits in the top eighth nationally, which is what happens when a small campus commits to one profession.
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.
Benedictine's doctorate is an executive leadership degree, online and part-time, built from 12 courses across 36 to 40 credit hours in eight-week terms, and the school says it can be finished in as few as 24 months. The clinical arithmetic is the part worth reading twice. The requirement is 1,000 hours, your master's hours count toward it, and Benedictine converts them at a fixed rate: one semester credit for every 125 hours of graduate supervised practice you already hold. You need evidence of 500 such hours before you can start the project course, and if you do not have them the program enrolls you in an immersion practicum to make them up. CCNE granted the program the maximum five-year initial accreditation.
Elmhurst runs a 28-month doctorate entirely online, mixing synchronous and asynchronous classes, and moves students through as a cohort rather than as individuals picking their own pace. Clinical hours are built into the curriculum throughout instead of being saved for the end, which is the arrangement most likely to keep you on schedule. Entry is post-master's: a nursing master's at 3.0 or better, plus an active RN license and current employment as a nurse. Elmhurst is unusually direct about what an offer is worth. Cohort seats are limited, offers are conditional on clearing health and background checks by published deadlines, and a seat not confirmed in time goes to someone else.
McKendree's doctorate is 30 credit hours online, taken as a cohort, and it does something with immersions that is worth noticing: the two mandatory immersions run over Zoom rather than on campus, one to two days each, every August across the two years. That is an immersion you can attend from home, which is not what the word usually means. The clinical requirement meets the national 1,000-hour standard, and up to 500 of those can be awarded for documented hours from your master's, so every student completes at least 500 new ones. You learn your first immersion dates when you are admitted in March. Fall behind the cohort and you rejoin the next one.
Choosing A DNP Program In Illinois
What studying in Illinois 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 Illinois publishing both rates, the out-of-state rate runs a median of 1.8 times the in-state one. At University of Illinois Chicago the gap is $11,373 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.
With 18 to read, cut on the track before you cut on the school
That is more institutions than anyone reads properly, and the cut that removes most of them is the population focus rather than the ranking. A university with a strong doctorate may not run the specialty you want, and a track can be closed to new applicants while the rest of the program keeps recruiting. Decide the specialty first, then read what is left. The ranking above orders what remains on published tuition, conferrals and completion.
The Illinois 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.
The distance flag here records delivery, not your week
10 of the 15 measured institutions in Illinois 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
Benedictine University, Elmhurst University and McKendree 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.
Nursys, the national
license verification system operated by the boards themselves
AANP places Illinois in its reduced practice category,
which it defines this way: state law reduces the ability to engage in at least one element of practice, typically by requiring a career-long collaborative agreement with another health provider, or by limiting the setting in which an element of practice may happen.
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 not the degree, it is the collaborative
agreement. Ask the board what the agreement has to contain and who may
sign it, then ask a prospective employer whether they already have one in
place, because a license you cannot use until a physician signs is a
different proposition from one you can.
Practice environment from AANP's Illinois 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 Illinois
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.
Nurse practitioners in Illinois have a median of $130,680, which ranks 30 of the 51 jurisdictions the survey publishes a median for, across about 9,270 people in the state.
Mid-table pay across one of the larger workforces the survey measures, which usually means the spread within the state matters more than the state figure does.
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
302
Of those, rural
193
Median score
16
Highest score
23
Most designated shortage in Illinois is rural, 193 of 302 designations, but the
remaining 109
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 16
against a highest of 23. 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 Illinois
10 of the 18 accredited doctorates in Illinois 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 Illinois 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 15 institutions with federal figures here,
4 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.
10 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 Illinois. The degree-wide questions are answered on the guides.
How many DNP programs are there in Illinois?
18, which is more than anyone reads properly. The cut that removes most of them is the specialty rather than the score: a strong institution may not run the track you want, and a track can be closed to new applicants while the rest of the school keeps recruiting.
How much does a DNP cost in Illinois?
Published in-state rates run $7,700 to $38,013, a spread of about 4.9 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 Illinois if you live there?
Yes, by $11,373 a year at the widest of the 2 public institutions 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 Illinois?
Not fully. Illinois is reduced practice in AANP's classification, meaning statute limits at least one element of practice and requires a career-long collaborative agreement with another provider. What that agreement must contain is set by the board, and it is worth reading before you plan a career here rather than after.
What do nurse practitioners earn in Illinois?
A median of $130,680, within $1,620 of the national $132,300. Illinois 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 Illinois?
It can. 302 designated primary-care shortage areas, 193 of them rural, so both kinds of site exist. Eligibility attaches to an approved site rather than to the jurisdiction, which makes it an employer question.
Can you study for a DNP online in Illinois?
10 of the 15 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.
1CCNE Accredited Program Directory It decides which institutions appear on this page at all: the 18 in Illinois below are the ones it lists as holding current accreditation for the Doctor of Nursing Practice.
2IPEDS 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 Illinois, 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.
