Best DNP Programs

New York City metro

Best DNP Programs In New York City 2026

Eight accredited institutions across a metro that crosses a state line where the practice rules change: New York grants nurse practitioners full practice authority and New Jersey does not.
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Key Takeaways

  1. 1

    One metro, two price worlds. Published in-state rates here run from $7,070 to $62,796, a spread of about 9 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, 6 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

    The state line changes your license. This metro spans New York and New Jersey, and AANP does not classify them the same way. Where you practice decides what your license lets you do, and it is a separate decision from where you study.

  4. 4

    2 of 8 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.

A State Line That Changes What Your License Lets You Do

AANP classifies New York as full practice and New Jersey as reduced practice. Five of the eight accredited doctorates in this metro are in New York and three are in New Jersey, and the two groups are a commute apart. So a nurse practitioner trained on one side of the Hudson and licensed on the other works under different rules for the rest of their career.

This is the decision no school page will frame for you, because each school describes its own state. Reduced practice means state law requires a career-long collaborative agreement with another provider before you can deliver patient care; full practice means the board licenses you to do it. That is a difference in what the credential is worth, not a difference in paperwork.

The pay figures point the same way as the size of the market. The metropolitan wage cut puts nurse practitioners here far above the national median, across the largest metropolitan workforce BLS publishes for the occupation. What the wage figure does not describe is the cost of living behind it.

How This Ranking Is Scored

Three published figures, weighted. Scores are relative to the 8 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 New York City 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 8 Stony Brook University Stony Brook, NY · Public $7,070 4 76% 67.1
2 of 8 Dominican University New York Orangeburg, NY · Private nonprofit $33,120 13 53% 64.7
3 of 8 William Paterson University of New Jersey Wayne, NJ · Public $15,204 7 44% 62.1
4 of 8 Seton Hall University South Orange, NJ · Private nonprofit · offered online $50,380 5 69% 31
5 of 8 Adelphi University Garden City, NY · Private nonprofit $46,784 4 67% 28.4
6 of 8 New York University New York, NY · Private nonprofit $62,796 5 88% 26.3
7 of 8 Felician University Lodi, NJ · Private nonprofit · offered online $36,550 3 47% 24.6
8 of 8 Pace University New York, NY · Private nonprofit $51,602 4 60% 21.7

What This Guide Counts As The New York City Metro

This guide follows the New York-Newark-Jersey City metropolitan statistical area, which reaches well past the five boroughs. Only two of the eight institutions are in New York City itself; the rest sit in Nassau, Rockland and Suffolk counties and across the Hudson in Bergen, Essex and Passaic. That spread is the reason to read this as a metro rather than as a list of Manhattan schools, and the state line running through it changes what your license lets you do.

Municipalities Included

  • New York, NY
  • Garden City, NY
  • Orangeburg, NY
  • Stony Brook, NY
  • Lodi, NJ
  • South Orange, NJ
  • Wayne, NJ

Deliberately Not Included

  • Trenton, NJ Trenton is its own metropolitan statistical area. It is also excluded from the Philadelphia guide for the same reason, so no institution is counted twice.
  • Galloway, NJ Stockton University sits in Atlantic County, in the Atlantic City metro rather than this one.
  • Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse, NY Upstate metros several hours away, each with its own accredited institutions.
  • Vestal, NY Binghamton University is in the Binghamton metro, not the New York one.

The Best 8 DNP Programs In New York City, Ranked

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

Ranked 1 of 8

Stony Brook University

Stony Brook, NY

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

4 DNP tracks at this institution, Adult health, Family nurse practitioner, Maternal/Child Health and Neonatal Nurse/Nursing, Pediatric. Ranked once, on the largest.

Stony Brook is only taking advanced standing applicants at present, which narrows the field sharply: you need a master’s as an advanced nurse practitioner or a certified nurse midwife to apply at all. On that route the program is 42 credits with a minimum of 500 scholarly practice hours, counted toward the 1,000 post-baccalaureate hours the degree requires. The full program, when it is open, is 87 credits against the same 1,000-hour floor. Registered nurse licensure has to be in place before the fall semester starts rather than at application. Doctoral students must carry their own malpractice insurance, a real cost most schools never mention. The grade point average floor is 3.0, and three letters of recommendation are asked for.

In-State Tuition
$7,070
Out-Of-State
$28,880
DNP Awards
4
UG Completion
76%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 100
  • Established program 17.8
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 72.7

Visit Stony Brook University →

Ranked 2 of 8

Dominican University New York

Orangeburg, NY

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

Dominican builds its doctorate around a residency rather than a capstone bolted on at the end. A one-credit course introduces the residency, and Residency I carries four credits, pairing clinical practicum with scholarly work so the project grows inside supervised practice instead of running alongside it. That structure matters if you want the doctoral project to be something you do at work rather than a paper you write after hours. This is a small university of about 1,400 students, and against that size it confers nursing doctorates at one of the higher rates in the country. The program carries no distance flag in its federal filing, so plan on being in Orangeburg rather than at a distance.

In-State Tuition
$33,120
Out-Of-State
$33,120
DNP Awards
13
UG Completion
53%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 53.3
  • Established program 100
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 20.5

Visit Dominican University New York →

Ranked 3 of 8

William Paterson University of New Jersey

Wayne, NJ

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

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.

In-State Tuition
$15,204
Out-Of-State
$24,844
DNP Awards
7
UG Completion
44%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 85.4
  • Established program 55.3
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 0

Visit William Paterson University of New Jersey →

Ranked 4 of 8

Seton Hall University

South Orange, NJ

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

In-State Tuition
$50,380
Out-Of-State
$50,380
DNP Awards
5
UG Completion
69%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 22.3
  • Established program 32.4
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 56.8

Visit Seton Hall University →

Ranked 5 of 8

Adelphi University

Garden City, NY

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

Adelphi files its doctorate under a geriatric specialty rather than a general one, which is unusual and tells you where the program points: care of older adults rather than a broad advanced practice degree. The college puts the graduate timeline at roughly three years. It also runs the undergraduate route beneath it, and that matters in New York, because state law requires a registered nurse to earn a bachelor’s in nursing within ten years of licensure, so a nurse working through that requirement can do both in one place. The doctorate carries no distance flag in its federal filing, so plan on being on Long Island. It is a small doctoral program inside a mid-sized private university.

In-State Tuition
$46,784
Out-Of-State
$46,784
DNP Awards
4
UG Completion
67%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 28.7
  • Established program 17.8
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 52.3

Visit Adelphi University →

Ranked 6 of 8

New York University

New York, NY

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

4 DNP tracks at this institution, Adult health, Critical care, Psychiatric-mental health NP, Registered nursing (general). Ranked once, on the largest.

NYU gives you seven years from the date you matriculate to finish, whichever entry option you take, holding a 3.0 grade point average throughout. Seven years is generous by the standards of this field, and it is the number that matters most if you expect your working life to be unpredictable. The advanced standing route is a minimum of 36 credits, and 400 of its clinical hours are attached specifically to the DNP project rather than to general practice. That is a large share of your hours riding on the project, which is worth knowing because project hours depend on finding a site and a question, and those are the parts that stall.

In-State Tuition
$62,796
Out-Of-State
$62,796
DNP Awards
5
UG Completion
88%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 0
  • Established program 32.4
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 100

Visit New York University →

Ranked 7 of 8

Felician University

Lodi, NJ

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

In-State Tuition
$36,550
Out-Of-State
$36,550
DNP Awards
3
UG Completion
47%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 47.1
  • Established program 0
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 6.8

Visit Felician University →

Ranked 8 of 8

Pace University

New York, NY

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

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

Pace runs a 30-credit post-master’s doctorate over two years part-time, entirely online, and sets a higher admission bar than most: a 3.3 grade point average in your master’s, or equivalent professional experience where your grades fall short. That second clause is worth asking about directly, because schools rarely put a route around a GPA floor in writing. The practitioner routes, adult-gerontology acute care, family, and psychiatric mental health, all land at 1,000 supervised practice hours whichever one you take. Anyone coming through the bridge route meets the program director for a gap analysis first, so what you owe is settled before you enroll rather than after. Two years part-time is a realistic clock for a nurse who is not stepping away from work.

In-State Tuition
$51,602
Out-Of-State
$51,602
DNP Awards
4
UG Completion
60%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 20.1
  • Established program 17.8
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 36.4

Visit Pace University →

Choosing A DNP Program In New York City

What studying in the New York City 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 New York City metro publishing both rates, the out-of-state rate runs a median of 4.1 times the in-state one. At Stony Brook University the gap is $21,810 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. This metro crosses a state line, which sharpens it: two campuses within the same commute are billed by different legislatures, and which of them is your in-state option is decided by your address rather than by your drive.

The New York 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 and Seton Hall University carry the distance flag

2 of the 8 measured institutions in the New York City 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 New York is the field

This page covers the institutions inside the New York City 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 New York 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, And Which Side Of The Line You Are On

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.

New York
Full Practice
New York State Board of Nursing
New Jersey
Reduced Practice
New Jersey Board of Nursing

This metro crosses a state line and the line matters. AANP classifies New York as full practice and New Jersey as reduced practice. Those are different working conditions, not different labels: the least restricted category lets a nurse practitioner evaluate, diagnose, order tests and prescribe under the board’s own authority, while the more constrained ones require a collaborative agreement or career-long supervision by another provider before you can see patients at all.

So the school you pick and the state you practice in are two decisions, and in this metro they can be made independently. You can study on one side of the line and be licensed on the other, which is worth planning deliberately rather than discovering: licensure by endorsement runs to months, and several programs want an active license in the state where your practicum will happen rather than wherever you hold one now.

The board detail, the full AANP definition and the license verification route are on the state guides: DNP programs in New York and DNP programs in New Jersey . 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 New York City Metro

BLS OEWS, May 2025, metropolitan area cut for New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ, 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, New York City metroEmployedNational median
Nurse practitioners29-1171$163,34021,680$132,300
Nurse anesthetists29-1151$321,0302,310$236,590
Registered nurses29-1141$119,720197,740$97,550
Nursing Instructors and Teachers, Postsecondary25-1072$92,0505,290$80,250

Nurse practitioners in the New York City metro have a median of $163,340, across about 21,680 of them, $31,040 above the national $132,300. The two state figures behind this metro differ from each other as well: New York at $153,510 and New Jersey at $159,310, which is a real gap for a metro people commute across.

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.

New York, designated areas
194
New York, of those rural
64
New Jersey, designated areas
45
New Jersey, of those rural
6

These figures cover New York and New Jersey in full rather than the New York City 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. Because this metro spans a state line, a site on either side can qualify, and which state it sits in changes nothing about the federal programs. 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 guides break the designations down further: New York and New Jersey.

Studying From Outside The New York City Metro

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

Which New York City 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: Stony Brook University

The lowest published in-state rate among New York City's publics, at $7,070 a year. An annual rate, not a program total, and it assumes residency.

If you are moving to New York City: settle residency before you apply

Stony Brook University publishes a $21,810 annual gap between its in-state and out-of-state rates, the widest of the 2 New York City publics publishing both. Start with the registrar, not admissions.

If you hold a bachelor's: William Paterson University of New Jersey states that route

William Paterson University of New Jersey's own pages name a bachelor's entry. Others in New York City 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: Felician University

Felician 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: 2 institutions here carry the distance flag

Felician University, Seton Hall University 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. 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 New York City?

8 institutions in the New York City metro hold CCNE accreditation for the Doctor of Nursing Practice. This guide counts the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ metropolitan statistical area rather than the city limits, so the figure includes institutions in 7 municipalities.

What counts as the New York City metro on this page?

The New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ metropolitan statistical area. In practice that means these municipalities: New York, NY; Garden City, NY; Orangeburg, NY; Stony Brook, NY; Lodi, NJ; South Orange, NJ; Wayne, NJ. Places deliberately left out are listed on this page with the reason.

Is it cheaper to study for a DNP in New York City 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 New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ 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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