Best DNP Programs

Madison metro

Best DNP Programs In Madison 2026

Two accredited institutions on the same side of one city, at institutions that differ in size by a factor of twenty.
A snow-covered street lined with bare trees, cars under a gray sky, a pale domed capitol building closing the view at the far end
On this page

Key Takeaways

  1. 1

    Every one of the 2 is inside the city itself. This guide counts the Madison, WI metropolitan area, which reaches further than the city, but no accredited institution in it sits outside Madison. So the metro definition costs you nothing here and the commute is the city's, not the region's.

  2. 2

    1 public, 1 private, and the cheap end is public. University of Wisconsin, Madison publishes $10,006 in-state, against $35,860 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 Wisconsin, Madison is most of this metro. It conferred 36 of the 44 DNP awards recorded here, which is 82% of them, against 8 at Edgewood University. Treat the others as genuinely small programs rather than as alternatives of a similar size.

  4. 4

    Nothing here is distance-flagged. No institution in this metro carries the federal distance-education flag. It records an institutional filing rather than how a program runs, so ask each school directly, but plan on being in the room.

A 51,000-Student University And A 2,500-Student College, Two Miles Apart

The University of Wisconsin-Madison enrolls 51,044 students and Edgewood College enrolls 2,459. Both sit in the same city, both run an accredited DNP, and almost nothing else about the surrounding institution is comparable. That gap is larger than the gap between most metros on this site.

The doctoral figures narrow it but do not close it. UW-Madison conferred 36 DNP awards in the reporting year and Edgewood conferred 8, a ratio of four and a half to one rather than twenty to one, which says the nursing programs are closer in size than their institutions are. A small college can run a DNP cohort comparable to a large university’s.

Price follows institutional type as usual: $10,006 in-state at UW-Madison against $35,860 at Edgewood. Neither is flagged for distance education, so unlike most metros in this batch there is no format argument to weigh against the price one. Both expect you in Madison.

How This Ranking Is Scored

Three published figures, weighted. Scores are relative to the 2 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 Madison 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 2 University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI · Public $10,006 36 90% 100
2 of 2 Edgewood College Madison, WI · Private nonprofit $35,860 8 60% 0

What This Guide Counts As The Madison Metro

This guide follows the Madison, WI metropolitan statistical area. Both institutions report Madison itself as their city. Wisconsin carries two metro guides on this site, Madison and Milwaukee, and they share no institutions.

Municipalities Included

  • Madison, WI

Deliberately Not Included

  • Middleton and Sun Prairie, WI Inside the metro and carrying no institution in the accredited dataset.
  • Milwaukee, WI Its own metropolitan area about eighty miles east, and the larger of the two Wisconsin fields on this site. It has its own guide.

The Best 2 DNP Programs In Madison, Ranked

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

Ranked 1 of 2

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Madison, WI

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

Madison solves the problem that stalls more doctorates than coursework does. It runs a Clinical Placement Unit whose job is to secure placements in your population area and make sure the hours needed for certification and graduation are actually obtained, because staff and faculty find the practicum so you do not have to. In a market where preceptors are scarce, that is worth more than any figure on this card, and it is the opposite of schools that leave students to source their own. The scholarly project is organized around the population you intend to serve, whether pediatric primary care, psychiatric-mental health or adult-gerontology acute care. Graduates are prepared for hospitals, intensive care, emergency departments, urgent care, surgical suites and specialty settings. It also caps waivable credits at 18, which sets a floor on how much coursework an MSN-prepared applicant still has to take.

In-State Tuition
$10,006
Out-Of-State
$40,506
DNP Awards
36
UG Completion
90%

Scored on

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

Visit University of Wisconsin-Madison →

Ranked 2 of 2

Edgewood College

Madison, WI

0 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Private nonprofit
  • Doctorate (professional)

Edgewood runs two doctorates with different accreditors and different purposes. The nurse anesthesia program is new, launched in 2025, accredited by the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs, and it leads to eligibility for the national certification examination and licensure as a certified registered nurse anesthetist. The executive leadership doctorate is the older one, accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education and approved by the Wisconsin Board of Nursing. It needs a minimum of 30 credits over two years full-time, and the practicum is sized to you, between 500 and 1,000 hours depending on what your master’s already covered. Its coursework runs to epidemiology, biostatistics, healthcare finance, informatics and quality management, so it is a management degree in substance as well as in name.

In-State Tuition
$35,860
Out-Of-State
$35,860
DNP Awards
8
UG Completion
60%

Scored on

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

Visit Edgewood College →

Choosing A DNP Program In Madison

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

Edgewood College and University of Wisconsin-Madison are the whole of the field in Madison

Edgewood College and University of Wisconsin-Madison file their conferrals under a specialty classification rather than under Nursing Practice, so the credit total, the entry routes and the clinical hour requirement live on their own pages rather than in the federal columns this page ranks on. Ask them who arranges clinical placements, and take the licensure question to the Wisconsin board of nursing rather than to the school.

Who Licenses You In The Madison 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.

Wisconsin
Reduced Practice
0

Every institution on this page sits in Wisconsin, so one board licenses all of them and AANP classifies the jurisdiction as reduced 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 Wisconsin . 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.

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.

Wisconsin, designated areas
156
Wisconsin, of those rural
123

These figures cover Wisconsin in full rather than the Madison 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: Wisconsin.

Studying From Outside The Madison Metro

the Madison metro holds 2 accredited doctorates and none of the measured ones carries the federal distance-education flag. That flag is an institutional filing rather than a description of any one program, so the local field may reach further than it looks, but a program run elsewhere is the route to check first. 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 Madison metro this cycle, and whether it will place you for supervised clinical hours near where you live.

Which Madison 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 Wisconsin-Madison

The lowest published in-state rate among Madison's publics, at $10,006 a year. An annual rate, not a program total, and it assumes residency.

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

University of Wisconsin-Madison publishes a $30,500 annual gap between its in-state and out-of-state rates, the widest of the 1 Madison public publishing both. Start with the registrar, not admissions.

If you already hold an advanced practice credential: Edgewood College

Edgewood College 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.

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 Madison?

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

What counts as the Madison metro on this page?

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

Is it cheaper to study for a DNP in Madison 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 Madison, WI 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.

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