Best DNP Programs

Miami metro

Best DNP Programs In Miami 2026

Six accredited institutions inside one commuting area, priced from $2,522 to $60,720 a year, which is the widest range on this site.
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Key Takeaways

  1. 1

    One metro, two price worlds. Published in-state rates here run from $2,522 to $60,720, a spread of about 24 times inside one commuting area. Which end applies to you turns on residency and control, not on which campus you can reach.

  2. 2

    2 public, 4 private, and the cheap end is public. The lowest published in-state rate belongs to a public institution, so residency is the lever here. That figure is one school's published year, not a typical cost, and it excludes fees and clinical expenses.

  3. 3

    What the ranking is scored on. Published tuition, conferral scale and institution-wide undergraduate completion, the three figures federal records carry for every institution here. 6 of the 6 disclose enough to be scored at all.

  4. 4

    1 of 6 reach you at a distance. That many carry the federal distance-education flag, which covers taught content and never the supervised practice hours. Ask for the number of on-campus days and the months they fall in.

The Widest Price Range Of Any Metro On This Site

Florida Atlantic University publishes $2,522 a year in state. The University of Miami publishes $60,720. Both are accredited doctorates inside the same metropolitan area, and the gap between them is 24 times, which is a spread this site does not see anywhere else. Even the second-cheapest, Florida International University at $4,721, sits an order of magnitude below the private field.

The split runs exactly along control: the two publics are the two cheapest, and the four privates run from $33,580 to $60,720 with nothing in between. So this metro does not offer a price ladder, it offers two prices, and which one applies to you turns on Florida residency rather than on which campus you can reach.

Volume does not follow price the way it often does. Florida International conferred 81 doctorates in the reporting year, the largest output in the metro, and Barry University conferred 79 at roughly seven times the published rate. The cheap end here is not the small end, and the expensive end is not buying scarcity.

How This Ranking Is Scored

Three published figures, weighted. Scores are relative to the 6 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 Miami 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 6 Florida International University Miami, FL · Public $4,721 81 74% 94.8
2 of 6 Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, FL · Public $2,522 32 63% 93.2
3 of 6 Barry University Miami, FL · Private nonprofit $33,600 79 38% 58.3
4 of 6 University of Miami Coral Gables, FL · Private nonprofit $60,720 48 84% 50
5 of 6 Palm Beach Atlantic University West Palm Beach, FL · Private nonprofit $39,400 10 55% 42.8
6 of 6 St. Thomas University Miami Gardens, FL · Private nonprofit · offered online $33,580 3 48% 26.6

What This Guide Counts As The Miami Metro

This guide follows the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metropolitan statistical area, which runs roughly seventy miles up the coast from Miami through Boca Raton to West Palm Beach. Three of the six institutions are in Miami-Dade, and the northern two are a real drive rather than a neighbouring suburb. The geography is part of the decision here, because the price differences are large enough to be worth commuting for.

Municipalities Included

  • Miami, FL
  • Miami Gardens, FL
  • Coral Gables, FL
  • Boca Raton, FL
  • West Palm Beach, FL

Deliberately Not Included

  • Fort Myers, FL Florida Gulf Coast University is on the other coast, in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers metro.
  • Orlando, Tampa and Jacksonville, FL Separate metros several hours north, each with its own accredited institutions.
  • Tallahassee and Gainesville, FL North Florida, and separately delineated.

The Best 6 DNP Programs In Miami, Ranked

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

Ranked 1 of 6

Florida International University

Miami, FL

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

FIU’s DNP leans psychiatric, and its practice sites make that plain: community mental health centers, crisis centers, psychiatric clinics and hospital units, correctional health, and private practice. Correctional health in particular is a setting few nursing schools name, and the placements you do are what you end up competent to handle afterwards. The provision worth knowing if you live anywhere else in Florida is that students in the online specialties may complete clinicals beyond the university’s own service area of Monroe, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach. Several Florida publics hold their students inside a catchment. This one says in writing that it does not. Its college publishes a plan of study per specialty rather than one for the degree.

In-State Tuition
$4,721
Out-Of-State
$16,529
DNP Awards
81
UG Completion
74%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 96.2
  • Established program 100
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 78.3

Visit Florida International University →

Ranked 2 of 6

Florida Atlantic University

Boca Raton, FL

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

Florida Atlantic splits the DNP by entry credential. The full-time BSN-to-DNP prepares family, adult-gerontology primary care and psychiatric-mental health practitioners. The post-master’s route runs part-time over eight semesters for APRNs who are already certified, covering leadership, clinical scholarship, nursing theory, cultural competence, population health, strategic healthcare management and evaluation. A minimum of 1,000 clinical hours culminates in a project mapped to the 2021 AACN Essentials. Delivery is four separate choices rather than one: live on campus, synchronous over Zoom, fully asynchronous, or hybrid. That matters because most schools offer a single mode and call it flexible. Its college also charges a per-credit fee on nursing courses on top of tuition, so the published annual rate is not the whole bill.

In-State Tuition
$2,522
Out-Of-State
$14,374
DNP Awards
32
UG Completion
63%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 100
  • Established program 100
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 54.3

Visit Florida Atlantic University →

Ranked 3 of 6

Barry University

Miami, FL

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

Barry gates its post-master’s doctorate on certification rather than a transcript audit. You need a valid, current national certification in an advanced nursing practice specialty, and the school treats that certification as the evidence you have already met the minimum clinical hours for your specialty. That is a cleaner test than counting hours one by one, and it means an uncertified master’s holder is not eligible here however many hours they logged. Barry confers one of the larger numbers of nursing doctorates in the country, both outright and against its size, sitting in the top tenth on each. The program carries no distance flag federally, so plan on Miami.

In-State Tuition
$33,600
Out-Of-State
$33,600
DNP Awards
79
UG Completion
38%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 46.6
  • Established program 100
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 0

Visit Barry University →

Ranked 4 of 6

University of Miami

Coral Gables, FL

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

Miami runs its family practitioner route so it can end in either a master’s or the doctorate, with eligibility for family practitioner certification either way, so how far you go is not locked in at admission. Beside the doctorate sit post-master’s certificates in adult-gerontology acute care, adult-gerontology primary care, family practice and oncology. The oncology certificate is the unusual one, because very few schools train advanced practice nurses specifically for cancer care, and it leads to a different job rather than a variation on the same one. The doctorate carries no distance flag in its federal filing, so plan on Coral Gables, and tuition sits near the top of the range on this site.

In-State Tuition
$60,720
Out-Of-State
$60,720
DNP Awards
48
UG Completion
84%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 0
  • Established program 100
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 100

Visit University of Miami →

Ranked 5 of 6

Palm Beach Atlantic University

West Palm Beach, FL

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

Palm Beach Atlantic runs its doctorate as a single practitioner track, adult-gerontology primary care, and the point of that track is the credential waiting at the end. Finishing it makes you eligible to sit the national certification examination through either the American Nurses Credentialing Center or the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. Choosing a school with one track rather than six is a narrower decision than it looks, because the faculty and the clinical placements are all pointed at the same patient population instead of being split across several. The program carries no distance flag in its federal filing, so plan on being in West Palm Beach rather than at a distance.

In-State Tuition
$39,400
Out-Of-State
$39,400
DNP Awards
10
UG Completion
55%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 36.6
  • Established program 54
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 37

Visit Palm Beach Atlantic University →

Ranked 6 of 6

St. Thomas University

Miami Gardens, FL

26.6 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Private nonprofit
  • Doctorate (professional)
  • Offered online

St. Thomas keeps its online DNP compact and regular: 13 core courses totaling 39 credits, with the residency built as three sequential practicum courses rather than one open-ended requirement. Each runs seven weeks and carries three credits, and together they are where the program’s required hours get completed. Nine of the 39 credits sit in that practicum sequence, so close to a quarter of the degree is residency rather than coursework. The seven-week course length is the part worth planning around, because it sets a rhythm you can hold a work roster against, and a stumble in one course costs you weeks rather than a whole semester.

In-State Tuition
$33,580
Out-Of-State
$33,580
DNP Awards
3
UG Completion
48%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 46.6
  • Established program 0
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 21.7

Visit St. Thomas University →

Choosing A DNP Program In Miami

What studying in the Miami metro 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 the Miami metro publishing both rates, the out-of-state rate runs a median of 5.7 times the in-state one. At Florida Atlantic University the gap is $11,852 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.

The Florida 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.

St. Thomas University carries the distance flag

1 of the 6 measured institutions in the Miami metro 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.

A metro is a commute, and Florida is the field

This page covers the institutions inside the Miami area because a campus you can reach on a weekday is a different proposition from one you cannot. It is a narrower field than the one you are actually choosing from: DNP programs in Florida carries every accredited institution in the state, and for a program you would attend at a distance the metro boundary means nothing at all.

Who Licenses You In The Miami 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.

Florida
Restricted Practice
Florida Board of Nursing

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

What The Work Pays In The Miami Metro

BLS OEWS, May 2025, metropolitan area cut for Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL, read 2026-09-09. 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, Miami metroEmployedNational median
Nurse practitioners29-1171$131,3405,810$132,300
Nurse anesthetists29-1151$232,000—$236,590
Registered nurses29-1141$91,38061,670$97,550
Nursing Instructors and Teachers, Postsecondary25-1072$86,0301,310$80,250

Nurse practitioners in the Miami metro have a median of $131,340, across about 5,810 of them, which is within $960 of the national $132,300.

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. The metropolitan cut is a different survey area from the state one, so these figures will not reconcile with the state page and are not meant to. How BLS defines these areas .

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.

Florida, designated areas
234
Florida, of those rural
104

These figures cover Florida in full rather than the Miami 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: Florida.

Studying From Outside The Miami Metro

1 of the 6 accredited doctorates in the Miami metro 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 the Miami metro this cycle, and whether it will place you for supervised clinical hours near where you live.

Which Miami 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: Florida Atlantic University

The lowest published in-state rate among Miami's publics, at $2,522 a year. An annual rate, not a program total, and it assumes residency.

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

Florida Atlantic University publishes a $11,852 annual gap between its in-state and out-of-state rates, the widest of the 2 Miami publics publishing both. Start with the registrar, not admissions.

If you hold a bachelor's: Barry University states that route

Barry University's own pages name a bachelor's entry. Others in Miami 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: Barry University

Barry 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: St. Thomas University

St. Thomas University carries the federal distance-education flag. 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. 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 Miami?

6 institutions in the Miami metro hold CCNE accreditation for the Doctor of Nursing Practice. This guide counts the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL metropolitan statistical area rather than the city limits, so the figure includes institutions in 5 municipalities.

What counts as the Miami metro on this page?

The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL metropolitan statistical area. In practice that means these municipalities: Miami, FL; Miami Gardens, FL; Coral Gables, FL; Boca Raton, FL; West Palm Beach, FL. Places deliberately left out are listed on this page with the reason.

Is it cheaper to study for a DNP in Miami 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 Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL 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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