Best DNP Programs

New Jersey

Best DNP Programs In New Jersey 2026

8 institutions in New Jersey hold CCNE accreditation for the Doctor of Nursing Practice. Published in-state graduate tuition among them starts at $12,150 a year, at Thomas Edison State University.
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Key Takeaways

  1. 1

    New Jersey is a small field. Only 6 schools here carry enough published figures to be scored, so a position says how one compares to its in-state neighbors and nothing about how it compares nationally.

  2. 2

    In-state rates sit in a narrow band. The 6 New Jersey institutions that publish an annual in-state rate run from $12,150 to $35,160, the highest only about 2.9 times the lowest, so cost separates them less here than it does nationally.

  3. 3

    Mostly public, and that is a residency question. 4 of the 6 institutions with federal figures are public, and a public in-state rate is a residents-only price, the private rates beside them apply to everyone.

  4. 4

    About half are delivered at a distance. 3 of the 6 carry the federal distance-education flag, which covers coursework and never the supervised practice hours.

Metro Guides Inside This State

Narrower than this page and organized around a commute rather than a border. Each one counts a census metropolitan area, so it can cross a state line where this page cannot.

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. 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 6 DNP Programs In New Jersey, Ranked

Ordered on published in-state tuition, annual DNP conferrals and institution-wide undergraduate completion, weighted for a state page so cost leads. Scores are relative to the 6 institutions on this page and not to the country, the same program carries a different number on the national list. How this is built.

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

Ranked 1 of 6

Thomas Edison State University

Trenton, NJ

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

Thomas Edison built its whole institution around working adults, and the doctorate shows it: 36 credits, finishing in 12 to 24 months, with a scholarly immersion project you can run inside your current job rather than somewhere else. Twelve months is fast for a doctorate, and it is only plausible because the project is meant to sit on top of work you are already doing. If your employer has a problem worth fixing and will let you fix it, that is the shape this program assumes. Everything runs online. School-wide average graduate tuition here, which excludes DNP add-on charges, sits in the middle third 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
$12,150
In-state
Tuition
$12,150
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
11
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 66.3

Visit Thomas Edison State University →

Ranked 2 of 6

Rutgers University-Camden

Camden, NJ

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

Rutgers Camden puts a hard experience gate partway through rather than at the door: you need at least two years of registered nurse experience before you can progress into Primary Care Clinical I. So the clock on eligibility keeps running after you enroll, which is unusual and worth mapping against your own service. The clinical volume is unusual too. Students complete roughly 1,400 to 1,600 supervised clinical hours, well above the 1,000 the degree standard sets. Clinical theory courses are taught in person on campus, with some of the scholarly and didactic coursework offered hybrid, and the school describes the program as rigorous and full-time rather than something to fit around a roster.

Tuition
$19,824
In-state
Tuition
$32,664
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
20
Completion
67%
Undergraduate
About the tuition figures
School-wide graduate average, 2023-24. Excludes DNP add-on charges.

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 66.6
  • Established program 100
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 92

Visit Rutgers University-Camden →

Ranked 3 of 6

Stockton University

Galloway, NJ

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

Stockton teaches its nursing programs against simulation and assessment labs on campus and a clinical network spread across the region and the state, so placements are not concentrated in one hospital system. The ladder beneath the doctorate is unusually complete for a public university this size: an accelerated bachelor’s for people who already hold a degree in another field, a family nurse practitioner master’s, and a post-master’s certificate for nurses who want specialty certification without another degree. The doctorate carries no distance flag federally, so plan on being in Galloway. It confers a small number of degrees a year, so the cohort is compact.

Tuition
$14,634
In-state
Tuition
$21,330
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
7
Completion
69%
Undergraduate
About the tuition figures
School-wide graduate average, 2023-24. Excludes DNP add-on charges.

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 89.2
  • Established program 41.8
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 100

Visit Stockton University →

Ranked 4 of 6

William Paterson University of New Jersey

Wayne, NJ

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

William Paterson runs one doctorate and is precise about it: a post-master’s DNP taught online, 38 credit hours, finishing in as few as 30 months. Thirty-eight credits is a middling load for a post-master’s route, and 30 months is the floor rather than the average, so read it as what the sequence allows when nothing goes wrong. The wider school of nursing matters if you are still choosing a master’s first. Its family nurse practitioner track runs 47 credits full-time or part-time, and it also runs a school nurse program that carries an Educational Services Endorsement once the 24 credits are done. School nursing is a different job from advanced clinical practice, and few universities run both routes inside one college.

Tuition
$15,948
In-state
Tuition
$22,950
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
7
Completion
44%
Undergraduate
About the tuition figures
School-wide graduate average, 2023-24. Excludes DNP add-on charges.

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 83.5
  • Established program 41.8
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 0

Visit William Paterson University of New Jersey →

Ranked 5 of 6

Felician University

Lodi, NJ

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

Felician runs its doctorate as a nursing education track and nothing else, taught online, scoped to nurses who already hold a master’s. The target is faculty work, academic practice and workforce development rather than advanced clinical practice, so this is the degree you take to teach rather than to add a patient population. Read the narrowness as a signal: a school with one education-focused track is staffing for that, not splitting its attention across six clinical specialties. Felician is a small private university in New Jersey and the doctoral cohort is small to match.

Tuition
$20,610
In-state
Tuition
$20,610
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 63.2
  • Established program 0
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 12

Visit Felician University →

Ranked 6 of 6

Seton Hall University

South Orange, NJ

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

Seton Hall prices the two entries far apart and publishes both: 31 credits and up if you already hold a master’s in nursing, against 73 to 79 credits coming from a bachelor’s. That is more than double, and it is the clearest argument on this card for finishing a master’s first if you are weighing the two. The program runs online. The wording Seton Hall uses is worth noticing as well, because it names master’s holders in direct or indirect care, so a master’s that was not a clinical practitioner degree is explicitly in scope here rather than left ambiguous.

Tuition
$35,160
In-state
Tuition
$35,160
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
5
Completion
69%
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 24.5
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 100

Visit Seton Hall University →

Also Accredited In New Jersey

These programs hold current CCNE accreditation. They file their DNP conferrals under a specialty classification rather than under Nursing Practice, so the federal tuition and conferral figures used above are not available for them and they are not scored.

  • Monmouth University CCNE-accredited DNP

    Monmouth builds its doctorate around a 500-hour leadership immersion, and it does the part that matters: you choose the site based on your interests and the school pairs you with a leader in that specialty to guide you through it. Coursework is asynchronous online, so you can keep working full-time while you do it. The hour arithmetic has a condition worth catching early. You need 1,000 immersion hours in total by graduation, and before you can register for the immersion courses you have to show 500 post-baccalaureate hours or take an extra course to make them up. Find out which applies to you at application rather than at registration.

  • Rutgers University-Newark CCNE-accredited DNP

    Rutgers runs 12 specialties from a bachelor's and several post-master's routes, and the two ends of that range are sized very differently. The post-master's practice focus is 36 credits over two years or more. The family nurse practitioner route from a bachelor's is 73 credits on a four-year or five-year plan. Delivery is hybrid with primarily virtual classes, but labs, clinical experiences and exams happen on campus, so this is not a distance degree despite the virtual classroom. There are two fall deadlines rather than one: March 1 for priority consideration and a faster decision, then a final date of July 1. Spring entry closes December 1.

Choosing A DNP Program In New Jersey

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

Settle your residency before you compare anything else

Across the 3 public institutions in New Jersey publishing both rates, the out-of-state rate runs a median of 1.5 times the in-state one. At Rutgers University-Camden the gap is $12,840 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 New Jersey 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.

Felician University, Seton Hall University and Thomas Edison State University carry the distance flag

3 of the 6 measured institutions in New Jersey 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.

The schools without figures are not the weaker ones

Monmouth University and Rutgers University-Newark file conferrals under a specialty classification rather than under Nursing Practice, so the federal columns this page ranks on do not exist for them. They carry the same CCNE accreditation as everything in the ranking above. A missing figure here is a filing convention rather than a verdict, and reading it as one would put a real option out of your reach for no reason. The notes beside those names come from the schools' own pages.

Who Licenses You In New Jersey

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

AANP places New Jersey 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 New Jersey 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 New Jersey

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, New JerseyEmployedRankNational median
Nurse practitioners29-1171$159,3109,9502 of 51$132,300
Nurse anesthetists29-1151$291,350—5 of 44$236,590
Registered nurses29-1141$106,50092,6807 of 51$97,550
Nursing Instructors and Teachers, Postsecondary25-1072$76,9802,00039 of 51$80,250

Nurse practitioners in New Jersey have a median of $159,310, which ranks 2 of the 51 jurisdictions the survey publishes a median for, across about 9,950 people in the state. Paid near the top of the national range across a workforce this size, which is the combination that gives a practitioner somewhere to move to without leaving the state.

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
45
Of those, rural
6
Median score
8
Highest score
18

Unusually, most of the designated shortage in New Jersey is not rural. Only 6 of the 45 designations are, so the approved site that qualifies you is as likely to be a city clinic as a country one. 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 8 against a highest of 18, 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 New Jersey

3 of the 8 accredited doctorates in New Jersey 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 New Jersey this cycle, and whether it will place you for supervised clinical hours near where you live.

What The Figures On This Page Are

Tuition is the institution's published annual graduate rate. It is not a DNP per-credit price, it is not a total program cost, and it is not what anyone pays after aid. A DNP taken part-time over four years does not cost four times the annual figure, because most programs bill by the credit.

DNP awards are conferrals in the reporting year at that institution. The figure says a program is running and how much of it is running; it does not say the program is better than a smaller one, and the rubric stops rewarding volume above 25 conferrals for that reason.

Undergraduate completion is exactly that, the federal 150%-of-normal-time rate for first-time, full-time bachelor's students at the institution. It is the weakest input in the model and carries the smallest weight. No federal series reports DNP completion, so nothing on this site claims one.

Of the 6 institutions with federal figures here, 4 are at public institutions. In-state tuition at a public school is available only to residents; the out-of-state rate is frequently two to four times higher and is the figure an out-of-state applicant should be reading.

3 institutions here are flagged by the federal survey as offered at a distance. That flag records how the coursework is delivered. It does not mean the clinical hours are remote, and it does not mean a student never travels to campus.

Frequently Asked Questions

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

How many DNP programs are there in New Jersey?

8 hold CCNE accreditation for the doctorate, and 2 of them file conferrals under a specialty classification, so they are listed by name rather than scored. A field this size is small enough to shortlist properly and large enough that the shortlist matters.

How much does a DNP cost in New Jersey?

From $12,150 to $35,160 in published in-state rates, so roughly double across the state. Wide enough to matter and narrow enough that it should not be the only cut you make.

Is a DNP cheaper in New Jersey if you live there?

Yes, by $12,840 a year at the widest of the 3 public institutions publishing both rates. Enrolling in a distance program does not confer residency; the state sets it under its own rules.

Can a nurse practitioner practice independently in New Jersey?

Not fully. New Jersey is reduced practice in AANP's classification, meaning statute limits at least one element of practice and requires a career-long collaborative agreement with another provider. What that agreement must contain is set by the board, and it is worth reading before you plan a career here rather than after.

What do nurse practitioners earn in New Jersey?

A median of $159,310, $27,010 above the national $132,300. That is a state figure for the occupation, and the cost of living behind it is not in the number.

Does federal loan repayment apply in New Jersey?

It can, and unusually it is not a rural question here: only 6 of the 45 designations are rural. The approved site that qualifies you is as likely to be a city clinic as a country one.

Can you study for a DNP online in New Jersey?

3 of the 6 measured institutions carry the flag. It covers taught content and nothing else, so the number to ask each school for is on-campus days and the months they fall in.

Sources

Two datasets produce every figure on this page, and the institutions those figures describe are listed under them. Nothing here is compiled from a school's own marketing material.

  1. 1 CCNE Accredited Program Directory It decides which institutions appear on this page at all: the 8 in New Jersey below are the ones it lists as holding current accreditation for the Doctor of Nursing Practice.
  2. 2 IPEDS Published tuition, annual conferrals, institutional completion and the distance-education flag.

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.

The Institutions Behind These Figures

Every institution the two datasets name in New Jersey, alphabetically. A link is the web address that institution reports to the federal directory, the school’s own site, not a page about the doctorate.

  1. 1

    Felician University

    Lodi, NJ · Private nonprofit · carries federal figures

  2. 2

    Monmouth University

    On the CCNE roster; no federal record under a nursing doctoral classification, so no directory address and no figures

  3. 3

    Rutgers University-Camden

    Camden, NJ · Public · carries federal figures

  4. 4

    Rutgers University-Newark

    On the CCNE roster; no federal record under a nursing doctoral classification, so no directory address and no figures

  5. 5

    Seton Hall University

    South Orange, NJ · Private nonprofit · carries federal figures

  6. 6

    Stockton University

    Galloway, NJ · Public · carries federal figures

  7. 7

    Thomas Edison State University

    Trenton, NJ · Public · carries federal figures

  8. 8

    William Paterson University of New Jersey

    Wayne, NJ · Public · carries federal figures

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