Best DNP Programs

Milwaukee metro

Best DNP Programs In Milwaukee 2026

4 accredited institutions in the Milwaukee metro, with school-wide average graduate tuition from $9,876 to $23,845 a year in state.
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Key Takeaways

  1. 1

    Price will not narrow this list. The published in-state rates here sit inside a band of roughly 2.4 times, which is tight for a metro. That pushes the decision onto track, cohort size and who arranges the clinical placement.

  2. 2

    The cheapest option here is private. 1 of the 4 are public, but the lowest published rate is not one of them. A private institution charges the same wherever you live, which inverts the residency arithmetic most metro pages rest on.

  3. 3

    Output is concentrated in one school. University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee conferred 35 of the 65 DNP awards recorded across this metro, with Marquette University next at 23. A number that lopsided says where the cohorts and the placement relationships are, which a ranking position does not.

  4. 4

    1 of 4 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.

Public And Private Rates Sit Closer Than Usual Here

School-wide average graduate tuition in this metro, which excludes DNP add-on charges, runs from $9,876 a year in state at Alverno College to $23,845 at Marquette University, about 2 times apart, in the 2023-24 federal figures.

The one public institution publishes $10,701 in state, and the three private institutions publish $9,876 to $23,845. Out of state, the public rate rises to $24,132.

University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee conferred the most DNPs in the metro in the reporting year, 35, and sits between the two ends of the price range.

These are average tuition figures for full-time graduate students across each institution, not a DNP price. Some doctoral programs add a tuition differential on top, so ask each school for its DNP rate per credit before comparing.

Only one of the four carries the federal distance-education flag, the lowest share of any metro on this site. Milwaukee is a metro you attend rather than one you enroll in remotely, and for a reader who cannot be in the room most of this field is unavailable. The national distance-flagged list is the alternative.

How This Ranking Is Scored

Three published figures, weighted. Scores are relative to the 4 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 4 DNP Programs In Milwaukee, 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.

Each card shows what the institution publishes.

Ranked 1 of 4

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Milwaukee, WI

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

Milwaukee runs a clinical nurse specialist track in adult-gerontology and calls itself the state’s hub for that role, which matters because the clinical nurse specialist is the advanced practice route most schools have quietly dropped. If you want systems-level clinical work rather than a practitioner license, this is one of the few places still building for it. The college holds more than 160 clinical partnerships, and that number is what determines whether a placement exists near you. Skills are trained in a dedicated simulation center before students reach patients. The Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education accredits the bachelor’s, the master’s, the doctorate and the post-graduate advanced practice certificate.

Tuition
$10,701
In-state
Tuition
$24,132
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
35
Completion
49%
Undergraduate
About the tuition figures
School-wide graduate average, 2023-24. Excludes DNP add-on charges.

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 94.1
  • Established program 100
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 0

Visit University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee →

Ranked 2 of 4

Alverno College

Milwaukee, WI

54.2 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Private nonprofit
  • Professional practice doctorate

Alverno runs 33 to 40 credits depending on the track you choose and how much clinical work you owe, and a full-time student can finish in 18 months. The hour count is set against your master’s practicum rather than fixed, so it varies from student to student. The distinctive part is funding. Students in the educational leadership track may be eligible for $40,000 through the Wisconsin Nurse Educator Program, a state scheme aimed at the shortage of nursing faculty. That is a large share of the cost of a doctorate this length, and it attaches to a track rather than to merit, so the track you pick changes what you pay. Alverno is a small college in Milwaukee and the doctoral cohort is small.

Tuition
$9,876
In-state
Tuition
$9,876
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
4
Completion
49%
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 11.9
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 0

Visit Alverno College →

Ranked 3 of 4

Marquette University

Milwaukee, WI

48.5 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Private nonprofit
  • Professional practice doctorate

Marquette takes master’s holders from three different backgrounds rather than only clinical ones: an advanced practice role, nursing administration and leadership, or health care policy. A policy master’s named explicitly as an entry route is unusual, and worth knowing if your work has moved away from the bedside. The curriculum spans translational research, epidemiology, informatics, statistics, advanced clinical practice and health policy. The deadlines are firm and worth marking: 15 November for spring entry and 15 February for fall, with late fall applications considered on a space-available basis if complete by 1 June. There is no summer admission at all, so the calendar has two doors rather than three.

Tuition
$23,845
In-state
Tuition
$23,845
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
23
Completion
83%
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 95.7
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 100

Visit Marquette University →

Ranked 4 of 4

Concordia University-Wisconsin

Mequon, WI

47.3 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.

Concordia publishes both totals for both routes, which makes them easy to weigh against each other. Bachelor’s entry is 70 credit hours and 1,008 clinical and practicum hours over three to four years, online with a mandatory four-day on-campus residency. The psychiatric mental health route from a master’s runs eight semesters, about three years, and requires 1,000 post-baccalaureate residency hours of which 500 must be psychiatric hours completed inside the program. That 500-hour floor is the number to check against what you already hold. Two eligibility limits come first: the online program is not open to international students or anyone needing an F1 visa, and state approval for online licensure varies, so check yours against the school’s disclosure list before you apply.

Tuition
$12,960
In-state
Tuition
$12,960
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
3
Completion
68%
Undergraduate
About the tuition figures
School-wide graduate average, 2023-24. Excludes DNP add-on charges.

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 77.9
  • Established program 0
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 55.9

Visit Concordia University-Wisconsin →

What This Guide Counts As The Milwaukee Metro

This guide follows the Milwaukee-Waukesha metropolitan statistical area. Three of the four institutions are in Milwaukee itself and Concordia University, Wisconsin is in Mequon, about twenty minutes north along the lake. It is the most compact metro on this site: every campus is inside the same commute, which is not true of Los Angeles or either Texas metroplex.

Municipalities Included

  • Milwaukee, WI
  • Mequon, WI

Deliberately Not Included

  • Madison, WI Its own metropolitan area, about ninety minutes west, with two accredited institutions.
  • Green Bay, Oshkosh, Eau Claire and La Crosse, WI Separate Wisconsin metros, each with an accredited institution.
  • Chicago, IL Ninety minutes south and a separate metro, covered by its own guide.

Choosing A DNP Program In Milwaukee

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

What University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee charges depends on where you live

It is the one public institution in the Milwaukee metro publishing both rates, at $10,701 in state against $24,132 out of state, a difference of $13,431 a year. Residency is set by the state under its own rules rather than by where you sit to watch a lecture, so an out-of-state applicant should treat that gap as the first question rather than a footnote.

The Wisconsin 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.

Concordia University-Wisconsin carries the distance flag

1 of the 4 measured institutions in the Milwaukee 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 Wisconsin is the field

This page covers the institutions inside the Milwaukee 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 Wisconsin 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 Milwaukee 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.

What The Work Pays In The Milwaukee Metro

BLS OEWS, May 2025, metropolitan area cut for Milwaukee-Waukesha, WI, 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, Milwaukee metroEmployedNational median
Nurse practitioners29-1171$134,3501,450$132,300
Nurse anesthetists29-1151$282,840210$236,590
Registered nurses29-1141$97,36022,400$97,550
Nursing Instructors and Teachers, Postsecondary25-1072$84,700830$80,250

Nurse practitioners in the Milwaukee metro have a median of $134,350, across about 1,450 of them, which is within $2,050 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.

Wisconsin, designated areas
156
Wisconsin, of those rural
123

These figures cover Wisconsin in full rather than the Milwaukee 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 Milwaukee Metro

1 of the 4 accredited doctorates in the Milwaukee 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 Milwaukee metro this cycle, and whether it will place you for supervised clinical hours near where you live.

Which Milwaukee 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-Milwaukee

The lowest published in-state rate among Milwaukee's publics, at $10,701 a year. An annual rate, not a program total, and it assumes residency.

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

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee publishes a $13,431 annual gap between its in-state and out-of-state rates, the widest of the 1 Milwaukee public publishing both. Start with the registrar, not admissions.

If you hold a bachelor's: Alverno College states that route

Alverno College's own pages name a bachelor's entry. Others in Milwaukee 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: Concordia University-Wisconsin

Concordia University-Wisconsin 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: Concordia University-Wisconsin

Concordia University-Wisconsin 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 Milwaukee?

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

What counts as the Milwaukee metro on this page?

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

Is it cheaper to study for a DNP in Milwaukee 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 Milwaukee-Waukesha, 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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Schools pay to appear in these listings. They are separate from our rankings, which no school can pay to change.