Every ranked institution in Illinois, with what the federal record
publishes for it and how its score was composed.
Ranked 1 of 15
Edwardsville, IL
91.6 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (other)
- Offered online
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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 100
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 44.1
Ranked 2 of 15
Chicago, IL
89.4 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 91.1
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 58.8
Ranked 3 of 15
Normal, IL
72.5 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 94.7
- Established program 42.8
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 67.6
Ranked 4 of 15
Addison, IL
72 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private for-profit
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 73.9
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 0
Ranked 5 of 15
Chicago, IL
66.3 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 42.7
- Established program 100
Ranked 6 of 15
Dekalb, IL
64.1 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 97
- Established program 35.7
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 20.6
Ranked 7 of 15
Rockford, IL
62.5 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (other)
- Offered online
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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 59.7
- Established program 66.5
Ranked 8 of 15
Peoria, IL
60.8 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (other)
- Offered online
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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 73.4
- Established program 42.8
Ranked 9 of 15
Peoria, IL
58.4 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 25.4
- Established program 87.8
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 100
Ranked 10 of 15
Chicago, IL
55.3 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 17.6
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 76.5
Ranked 11 of 15
Romeoville, IL
41.5 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (other)
- Offered online
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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 31
- Established program 42.8
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 73.5
Ranked 12 of 15
Decatur, IL
41.5 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 60.6
- Established program 15.8
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 38.2
Ranked 13 of 15
Chicago, IL
30.8 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (research)
- Offered online
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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 0
- Established program 48.8
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 91.2
Ranked 14 of 15
Joliet, IL
27.3 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (other)
- Offered online
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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 32.6
- Established program 0
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 73.5
Ranked 15 of 15
Chicago, IL
25.7 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 37.3
- Established program 0
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 47.1
