Best DNP Programs

Louisiana guide

Best DNP Programs In Louisiana 2026

Louisiana's public doctorates sit inside $6,499 of each other, so tuition barely separates them. The real decision is public against private, and what a reduced practice license is worth once you finish.
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Key Takeaways

  1. 1

    4 of 6 public rates sit within a quarter of the lowest. Southern University and A&M College publishes $5,336 and Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center-New Orleans publishes $11,835 in average graduate tuition. Across most of the public field price barely separates the options, so it is rarely the thing to choose on.

  2. 2

    The one private option costs 1.7 times the dearest public. Loyola University New Orleans publishes $20,524 a year. That is the shape of the decision in Louisiana: a cluster of public rates, or one private institution above all of them.

  3. 3

    Louisiana pays registered nurses $80,230. That ranks 44 of the 51 jurisdictions the federal survey publishes a median for. A low tuition in a low-wage state is a different calculation from a low tuition in a high-wage one, and both halves are on this page.

  4. 4

    AANP puts Louisiana in its reduced practice category. Read from AANP's own Louisiana fact sheet. It means state law limits at least one element of nurse practitioner practice, typically through a required collaborative agreement, which is a condition of working here rather than of studying here.

A Tight Public Band, And One Outlier

Louisiana is the state where a price comparison runs out of road fastest. 6 of the 7 institutions publishing a rate are public, and they sit between $5,336 and $11,835. That is a spread of $6,499 across six accredited doctorates, which is close enough that choosing on it would be choosing on noise.

Then there is Loyola University New Orleans at $20,524, roughly 1.7 times the dearest public. So the shape of the Louisiana decision is unusual: not a ladder of prices to climb, but one binary question followed by six near-equivalent answers on the cheaper side of it.

That has a practical consequence for how you read the ranking below. The cost factor normalizes within Louisiana, so it is separating institutions on differences of a few hundred dollars, which is real arithmetic on almost nothing. The conferral and completion figures carry more of the signal here than they do in a state with a wide spread, and the program cards carry more still.

How This Ranking Is Scored

Three published figures, weighted. Scores are relative to the 7 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 7 DNP Programs In Louisiana, Ranked

Scored against the other Louisiana programs rather than against the country.

Every ranked institution in Louisiana, with what the federal record publishes for it and how its score was composed.

Ranked 1 of 7

Northwestern State University of Louisiana

Natchitoches, LA

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

Northwestern State says it runs the only nurse anesthesia program in the University of Louisiana System, and that is the reason most applicants look here. The anesthesia concentration is full-time and built on simulation and clinical work aimed at surgical, trauma and pain management settings, so it is a route to CRNA rather than a general doctorate. The other two concentrations point elsewhere entirely. Executive leadership covers systems management, finance, policy and organizational leadership for nurses moving into administration. Educational leadership covers curriculum design, assessment and supervised teaching for nurses moving into faculty work. Those are three different jobs and the university keeps them apart rather than folding leadership coursework into a clinical track. 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 times the in-state one, so residency matters a great deal.

Tuition
$5,738
In-state
Tuition
$16,526
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
26
Completion
43%
Undergraduate
About the tuition figures
School-wide graduate average, 2023-24. Excludes DNP add-on charges.

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 97.4
  • Established program 100
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 50

Visit Northwestern State University of Louisiana →

Ranked 2 of 7

Southern University and A&M College

Baton Rouge, LA

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

Southern sets the steepest experience bar on this site: three years of full-time advanced practice as a certified nurse practitioner or nurse midwife, and it has to fall within the past five years. Most schools ask for one year, or none at all. You also need a current unencumbered Louisiana advanced practice license with no restrictions, plus national certification, so this is a doctorate for people already established in practice in that state rather than a route into it. The grade point average floor is 3.2 across the courses counted toward your master’s, above the usual 3.0. Applications close 15 April for fall and 1 November for spring, and the statement of interest runs 500 to 1,000 words.

Tuition
$5,336
In-state
Tuition
$5,336
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
13
Completion
27%
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 71.3
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 0

Visit Southern University and A&M College →

Ranked 3 of 7

Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center-New Orleans

New Orleans, LA

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

LSU’s health sciences center publishes its DNP as course tables rather than description, including a distinct adult-gerontology acute care sequence, so what the program emphasizes has to be read off the curriculum rather than a summary. One thing it does state plainly is that clinical hours and the three Ps, meaning advanced pathophysiology, pharmacology and physical assessment, are verified at admission rather than assumed, so applicants carrying credits from an earlier master’s should expect them to be audited before enrollment rather than after. This is a small, health-professions-only campus of 2,750 people, which means a cohort you will recognize rather than a faculty you queue to see.

Tuition
$11,835
In-state
Tuition
$24,108
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
71
About the tuition figures
School-wide graduate average, 2023-24. Excludes DNP add-on charges.

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 57.2
  • Established program 100

Visit Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center-New Orleans →

Ranked 4 of 7

Southeastern Louisiana University

Hammond, LA

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

Southeastern Louisiana leaves preceptor and facility selection to you, and says so plainly. That is the opposite of a placement service, and it is the most useful thing on this card, because finding your own preceptor is the step that stalls people most often. Weigh it against the schools that place you before you decide. Campus time comes down to two events, orientation and the defense of your doctoral project, with coursework online in between. Those online courses go through a peer review certification the university calls the Course Alignment Process, which is more quality assurance than most programs bother to describe. The GRE is no longer required. Bachelor’s entry specializes in family practice, psychiatric mental health or the nurse executive route.

Tuition
$6,684
In-state
Tuition
$19,162
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
6
Completion
45%
Undergraduate
About the tuition figures
School-wide graduate average, 2023-24. Excludes DNP add-on charges.

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 91.1
  • Established program 39.2
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 56.3

Visit Southeastern Louisiana University →

Ranked 5 of 7

McNeese State University

Lake Charles, LA

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

McNeese designed its DNP around nurses who are still working: part-time only, post-master’s only, and delivered face to face with an online component rather than as a fully remote program. It is 54 semester credit hours beyond a master’s in nursing, which is at the heavier end for a post-master’s route where 33 to 40 is common, so the trade for the part-time pace is a longer total commitment. 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 barely higher, which is unusual for a public university.

Tuition
$5,703
In-state
Tuition
$7,203
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
3
Completion
47%
Undergraduate
About the tuition figures
School-wide graduate average, 2023-24. Excludes DNP add-on charges.

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 97.6
  • Established program 13.3
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 62.5

Visit McNeese State University →

Ranked 6 of 7

University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Lafayette, LA

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

Louisiana at Lafayette charges no out-of-state premium on its online doctorate, which removes the penalty that usually makes a public university expensive from elsewhere. The program runs online with a dedicated enrollment specialist, round-the-clock tutoring and an online student resource center. One thing the university’s own reporting makes plain is worth knowing first: most students in the cohort are nurse practitioners, and a student who arrived from an administration and teaching background needed additional residency hours to finish. If your master’s was not a clinical practitioner degree, ask what your hour total will be rather than assuming the published one covers you. 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
$5,511
In-state
Tuition
$19,239
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
2
Completion
53%
Undergraduate
About the tuition figures
School-wide graduate average, 2023-24. Excludes DNP add-on charges.

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 98.8
  • Established program 0
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 81.3

Visit University of Louisiana at Lafayette →

Ranked 7 of 7

Loyola University New Orleans

New Orleans, LA

23.3 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Private nonprofit
  • Professional practice doctorate
  • Offered online

2 DNP tracks at this institution, Family nurse practitioner, Nursing practice (general). Ranked once, on the largest.

Loyola runs five routes and splits them cleanly by delivery: family practice and the executive leadership doctorate are online, while acute care, nurse anesthesia and the dual acute care plus anesthesia option are hybrid. The anesthesia program is 87 credits with practicums stacking at a minimum of 200, then 400, then 400 hours, and its semesters run continuously, with holidays and time off scheduled individually rather than falling on a shared calendar. That is a demanding structure, and the school describes it plainly instead of burying it. The executive route needs 30 or more credits and uses a personal transcript evaluation to credit the supervised practicum hours your master’s already covered, which can cut the coursework down. A dual anesthesia and acute care credential is rare.

Tuition
$20,524
In-state
Tuition
$20,524
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
4
Completion
59%
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 23.7
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 100

Visit Loyola University New Orleans →

What Separates The Public Programs, Since Price Does Not

If six schools cost within $6,499 of each other, the question becomes what else differs, and the answers are not in any table. Four are worth asking every one of them directly.

Who secures your clinical placement. Programs fall into three groups and rarely say which on the program page: the school places you, the school helps and you finish the search, or you find every preceptor yourself. Against the thousand supervised hours the degree requires, that is the largest cost nobody prints.

What happens if the doctoral project overruns. Some programs bill continuation credits or a candidacy fee for each additional term, charged exactly when a student is least able to absorb it, and it can exceed the entire spread between these six schools. Which tracks are open to new applicants this cycle, because a specialty can be closed while the rest of the program keeps recruiting. And how many on-campus days the program expects, and in which months.

Who Licenses You In Louisiana

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

AANP places Louisiana 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 Louisiana 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 Louisiana

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, LouisianaEmployedRankNational median
Nurse practitioners29-1171$125,6005,38045 of 51$132,300
Nurse anesthetists29-1151$222,13090035 of 44$236,590
Registered nurses29-1141$80,23048,97044 of 51$97,550
Nursing Instructors and Teachers, Postsecondary25-1072$79,96044024 of 51$80,250

Nurse practitioners in Louisiana have a median of $125,600, which ranks 45 of the 51 jurisdictions the survey publishes a median for, across about 5,380 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
178
Of those, rural
111
Median score
15
Highest score
23

Most designated shortage in Louisiana is rural, 111 of 178 designations, but the remaining 67 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.

The designations here differ widely in priority. The median scores 15 against a highest of 23, so which approved site you join moves your funding position further than anything about the state as a whole does.

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 Louisiana

Most of the measured field here is distance-flagged, 5 of 7 accredited doctorates in Louisiana, 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 Louisiana this cycle, and whether it will place you for supervised clinical hours near where you live.

Which Louisiana 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: Southern University and A&M College

The lowest published in-state rate among Louisiana's publics, at $5,336 a year. An annual rate, not a program total, and it assumes residency.

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

University of Louisiana at Lafayette publishes a $13,728 annual gap between its in-state and out-of-state rates, the widest of the 5 Louisiana publics publishing both. Start with the registrar, not admissions.

If you hold a bachelor's: Loyola University New Orleans states that route

Loyola University New Orleans's own pages name a bachelor's entry. Others in Louisiana may take bachelor's entrants too: this site records a route only where the school states it, so an absent name means unread rather than closed.

If you already hold an advanced practice credential: McNeese State University

McNeese State University 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: 5 institutions here carry the distance flag

Loyola University New Orleans, McNeese State University, Northwestern State University of Louisiana and others 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. How this site scores programs sets out each input and its weight in full.

Frequently Asked Questions

Answers specific to Louisiana. The degree-wide questions are answered on the guides.

What does a DNP cost in Louisiana?

Six of the seven measured institutions are public and publish annual in-state rates between $5,336 and $11,835. The seventh, Loyola University New Orleans, publishes $20,524. These are annual institutional rates rather than program totals, and most programs bill by the credit, so a year's rate multiplied by a program length is not what anyone pays.

If the public rates are so close, how do I choose between them?

On the things price is not telling you. Who secures your clinical placement, whether the track you want is open to new applicants this cycle, what the school charges if the doctoral project runs past its scheduled term, and how many on-campus days it expects. With 6 publics inside $6,499 of each other, those answers separate them far more than tuition does, and none of them appears in a ranking.

Can a nurse practitioner practice independently in Louisiana?

AANP classifies Louisiana as a reduced practice jurisdiction, meaning state law reduces the ability to engage in at least one element of nurse practitioner practice, commonly by requiring a career-long collaborative agreement with another health provider. That is AANP's reading of statute rather than a federal designation and it changes with legislation, so the Louisiana State Board of Nursing is the authority on the current position.

Does the doctorate raise what I earn in Louisiana?

Not by itself. The federal survey classifies by occupation and never by credential, so there is no DNP wage series to quote, and a DNP-prepared and a master's-prepared nurse practitioner on the same license do the same job. What the pay section below shows is what the occupations pay in Louisiana, and the registered nurse median here sits well down the national distribution, which is worth weighing against the low tuition rather than separately from it.

Are there enough shortage areas here for loan repayment?

Louisiana has 178 designated primary-care shortage areas, 111 of them rural, at a median HPSA score of 15. Both federal loan repayment routes require practicing at an approved site inside a designated area, and the score sets funding priority when applications outrun the money. Whether a specific employer counts as an approved site is settled by the program rather than by the designation.

Sources

Every figure on this page comes from one of the datasets below, and nothing here is compiled from a school's own marketing material.

  1. 1 CCNE Accredited Programs Directory Which institutions hold accreditation for the doctorate. The spine of this site’s program list.
  2. 2 IPEDS Tuition, conferrals, completion and the distance-education flag.
  3. 3 AANP State Practice Environment The full, reduced or restricted classification for Louisiana, taken from AANP's own fact sheet for the jurisdiction. AANP last revised the classification 05/2026. Read .
  4. 4 HRSA Designated Health Professional Shortage Areas, Primary Care Designated primary-care shortage areas, counted as distinct designated HPSA identifiers. Read .
  5. 5 NCSBN Member Board Directory Which body licenses nurses in Louisiana, and where to reach it. Read .
  6. 6 AANP Louisiana State Fact Sheet The reduced practice classification for Louisiana, read from AANP's own fact sheet for the jurisdiction. Read .
  7. 7 BLS OEWS, May 2025, Registered nurses (29-1141) The Louisiana registered nurse median and its rank among the jurisdictions the survey covers.

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.

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