Best DNP Programs In Kentucky 2026

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (professional)
• Offered online

Kentucky runs six specialties inside one BSN-to-DNP option and publishes a plan of study for each rather than one timetable for the degree. Full time is three years. If that will not fit around a roster there are five-year part-time plans and a modified four-year plan built specifically for nurses already working in direct care. Executive leadership sits apart from the clinical specialties with its own full- and part-time sequences. Your specialty decides your certification board as much as your coursework: family primary care goes to ANCC or AANP, both pediatric routes to the PNCB, and executive leadership to the ANCC nurse executive advanced exam or the AONE certified-in-executive-nursing-practice exam.

In-State Tuition

$12,109

Out-Of-State

$32,747

DNP Awards

36

UG Completion

71%

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (professional)

Murray State publishes its curricula course by course, with the credit weight and the clinical hours attached to each one, which is a level of detail most schools keep behind an advising appointment. The post-master’s route shows what that buys you: the doctoral project runs across three sequential courses carrying 180 clinical hours apiece, so 540 hours accumulate through the project itself rather than in separate placements. Bachelor’s entry splits into nurse anesthesia and family practice, and the family sequence front-loads assessment and diagnostics before primary care clinical courses at 180 hours each. If you want to know what a semester will actually demand before you commit, this is a school that has already written it down.

In-State Tuition

$8,604

Out-Of-State

$18,540

DNP Awards

29

UG Completion

61%

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (professional)

Louisville is exact about the critical care experience its nurse anesthesia route wants, and the detail matters more than the minimum does. One year of full-time critical care, recent, with employment verification, and preference goes to applicants whose work routinely involved hemodynamic monitoring, mechanical ventilation and vasoactive drug administration. A year on a general medical floor will not read the same way as a year in an intensive care unit, and the catalog says so in as many words. The wider doctorate can be entered from a bachelor’s or a master’s across several specialties, and admission is reviewed holistically rather than on grade point average alone, though 3.0 is the recommended floor.

In-State Tuition

$12,940

Out-Of-State

$29,286

DNP Awards

31

UG Completion

61%

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (professional)
• Offered online

Northern Kentucky puts a hard experience gate at the door rather than partway through: one year minimum of full-time critical care experience as a registered nurse, within the past two years, with employer verification on a form. Recency is the part that catches people out, because intensive care work from five years ago does not count however much of it there was. From a BSN the degree is 106 credit hours over nine semesters, three years exactly. The post-master’s nurse anesthesia route is 37 semester credits over six semesters instead. Between 106 credits and 37, the master’s you already hold is worth roughly two years here.

In-State Tuition

$10,704

Out-Of-State

$21,528

DNP Awards

99

UG Completion

52%

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (professional)

Western Kentucky’s BSN-to-DNP family nurse practitioner concentration is 76 credit hours, with both full-time and part-time options, and the wider program requirement runs from 36 to 76 hours depending on which end you enter at. The prerequisite that catches people out is not the grade point average, though that is a 3.0. It is anatomy and physiology, where the university wants a minimum of six credit hours graded B or above. A pass is not enough. If your A and P is old or was scraped through first time, that is the thing to check before anything else, because it is the one requirement you cannot fix inside an application cycle.

In-State Tuition

$11,652

Out-Of-State

$27,000

DNP Awards

11

UG Completion

56%

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (professional)

Eastern Kentucky builds its post-master’s doctorate around short terms: two seven-week blocks in fall and spring and two six-week blocks over summer, so you carry two classes at a time and still count as full-time. Two courses at once is a very different load from four, and it is the structural reason this fits around a roster. The doctoral project can be done inside your own organization or community rather than at a site the school assigns, and you are given a mentor for it. Everything runs online. Textbooks come through a program charging a flat rate per credit hour, a smaller saving than tuition but a predictable one. In-state tuition sits in the lower quarter of the programs on this site.

In-State Tuition

$10,020

Out-Of-State

$20,930

DNP Awards

9

UG Completion

50%

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

Bellarmine asks for a 3.5 in any graduate coursework you have already done, against 3.0 for undergraduate work, a higher bar than most and the first thing to check if you have a master’s behind you. The nurse anesthesia track wants a year of recent full-time critical care employment, within the past two years, evidenced on a verification form rather than asserted. Then an interview with graduate faculty. The catalog is unusually blunt about what follows: enrollment in that track is limited, and meeting every minimum does not assure admission. Post-master’s applicants choose between advanced nursing practice and executive leadership, and delivery is online or hybrid depending on the route.

In-State Tuition

$47,180

Out-Of-State

$47,180

DNP Awards

4

UG Completion

64%