Every ranked institution in North Carolina, with what the federal record
publishes for it and how its score was composed.
Ranked 1 of 10
Chapel Hill, NC
93.6 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Carolina asks you to choose a pathway before a specialty, and publishes three: health care leadership and administration, BSN-to-DNP nurse practitioner areas, and MSN-to-DNP. The coursework spans advanced practice, leadership and practice-based inquiry, ending in an evidence-based DNP project, with 1,000 practice hours inside the credit total. What sets it apart is that the specialty entry expectations are written down rather than implied: pediatric primary care wants roughly six months of full-time RN work in a neonatal, pediatric or child-serving community setting, and the psychiatric-mental health track wants six months in acute or community psychiatric and substance-use care. If you are switching populations rather than deepening the one you know, those are the sentences that decide whether to apply now or work another year first.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 90.8
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 88
Ranked 2 of 10
Wilmington, NC
89.6 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Wilmington offers five concentrations delivered in a flexible asynchronous online format, and asynchronous here means no fixed class times at all, which is rarer than the word "online" usually implies and the single reason to look here if your roster moves. The family nurse practitioner concentration is aimed at nurses seeking advanced practice skills to deliver primary care across the lifespan, while the nurse executive leadership concentration is 36 credit hours, completable in as few as five semesters, and written for nurses already on a leadership trajectory rather than those hoping to start one. Overall completion runs anywhere from five to fourteen semesters depending on how heavily you study, which the school publishes rather than burying.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 94.7
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 48
Ranked 3 of 10
Charlotte, NC
89.5 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Charlotte runs two concentrations that could hardly be less alike. The post-master’s DNP prepares health-system and organizational leaders, explicitly including non-APRNs alongside practicing APRNs, to lead through translating evidence into practice, so a nurse manager without a clinical master’s is not excluded. The BSN-to-DNP in nurse anesthesia across the lifespan is the opposite proposition: taught on campus in partnership with Atrium Health, a hospital-embedded clinical residency rather than something to fit around a job. Clinical hours are shaped to your primary area of interest and the specialty competencies. The university also warns that some states do not permit its online delivery or out-of-state practicum, which is the licensure question to settle before applying. It also publishes its student handbook openly, which is the fastest way to see what the program expects of you before you apply.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 95.7
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 44
Ranked 4 of 10
Greenville, NC
87.2 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
East Carolina runs five DNP concentrations: nurse anesthesia, adult-gerontology primary care, family nurse practitioner, nursing leadership, and a post-master’s route for APRNs who are already certified. That post-master’s route is 36 credit hours, split 18 core, 9 project and 9 electives, and it is part-time by design so you can keep working through it. Leadership is part-time only, with a single 1 May deadline and a fall start. The detail to know before you apply is that the clinical hours attached to your DNP project are not a fixed number. ECU calculates them from the hours you already logged during your master’s, so two students in one cohort can owe different amounts. You will need an unrestricted RN license in North Carolina or a compact state, and the GRE is waived if you hold an MSN.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 94.7
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 32
Ranked 5 of 10
Greensboro, NC
85.1 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Greensboro publishes the arithmetic that decides whether a post-master’s doctorate is worth starting. The post-master’s DNP runs 30 credits and 1,000 practicum hours, and the hours you already logged in a master’s count toward that total, which is how a full-time student finishes in four semesters, roughly 15 months, entering in the fall and ending the fall after. If your master’s practicum fell short, the school says you make up the difference here rather than waving it through. The nurse anesthesia concentration is a different commitment: 107 credits across nine semesters and 36 months, a May start, and graduate and clinical clock hours averaging about 35 a week. In-state tuition sits in the cheapest few percent of the programs on this site.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 94.8
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 18
Ranked 6 of 10
Cullowhee, NC
76.8 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Western Carolina builds its DNP on a master’s you already hold, and that makes the arithmetic unusually clean: 34 credit hours, and 1,000 clinical practice hours of which 500 transfer straight across from your MSN. The half you still owe is the half the program actually teaches. It runs fully online. The published in-state rate is the lowest of any accredited DNP institution in this dataset, and the out-of-state figure is lower than what 287 of the 304 institutions publishing a rate charge their own residents, so residency barely moves the number here. A rate that far below everyone else is worth confirming with the bursar before you build a budget on it.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 100
- Established program 65.3
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 26
Ranked 7 of 10
Durham, NC
50.1 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
7 DNP tracks at this
institution, Adult health, Family nurse practitioner, Maternal/Child Health and Neonatal Nurse/Nursing, Nursing practice (general), Pediatric, Psychiatric-mental health NP, Women's Health Nurse/Nursing. Ranked once, on the largest.
Duke files more separate DNP records with the federal survey than any other institution in this dataset, eight of them, which is a fair signal of how many distinct routes sit under one program name. Its MSN-to-DNP is distance-based, with coursework completed from wherever you are. Admission is broader than most: it takes a master’s in nursing from a CCNE- or ACEN-accredited program, but it will also take a master’s in a related health field, so a graduate degree from outside nursing does not rule you out here the way it does at a lot of schools. Among the specialties is a nurse innovator and entrepreneur track whose three specialty courses all run online.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 0.2
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 100
Ranked 8 of 10
Winston-Salem, NC
48.2 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
Winston-Salem State publishes both totals and both clocks, which makes the two routes easy to weigh against each other. Bachelor’s entry runs 78 semester hours with a minimum of 1,182 clinical hours and points at family nurse practitioner work, spread over six semesters and two summers, so about three years. Master’s entry runs 33 semester hours with a minimum of 510 clinical hours and takes roughly two years and a summer. The distance between 1,182 hours and 510 is the entire argument for finishing a master’s first if you are weighing the two routes. In-state tuition here is among the very lowest on this site, which for a North Carolina resident changes the arithmetic on everything above.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 96.3
- Established program 0
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 0
Ranked 9 of 10
Hickory, NC
36.9 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (other)
Lenoir-Rhyne points its doctorate at psychiatric mental health, and the track ends with eligibility to sit for board certification as a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. The clinical requirement runs past 1,000 hours, pairing direct clinical work with the doctoral project rather than treating them as two separate obligations. Psychiatric mental health is where the shortage of practitioners is sharpest, so a college running that track specifically is making a different bet from one running a general doctorate. The program carries no distance flag in its federal filing, so plan on Hickory. Against its size Lenoir-Rhyne confers nursing doctorates at a rate in the top quarter of accredited institutions, which is more than a college of 2,300 students usually manages.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 54.2
- Established program 27.1
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 2
Ranked 10 of 10
Winston-Salem, NC
33.6 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Wake Forest runs its doctorate through the School of Medicine rather than a school of nursing, and three of its 30 credits are taken in the university’s law school. Health law and policy electives inside a nursing doctorate is not a combination other programs offer, and it tells you what this degree is for: leadership and policy rather than clinical practice. The program is 24 months, part-time and online, with no clinical component at all beyond a leadership practicum in the final semester, which makes it one of the few nursing doctorates you can take without arranging a placement. A new cohort starts each August, and admission wants a 3.0 in a master’s in nursing plus two references.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 0
- Established program 59.9
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 84
