24 institutions in Pennsylvania hold CCNE accreditation for the Doctor of Nursing Practice. Published in-state graduate tuition among them starts at $9,288 a year, at Pennsylvania Western University.
The score is a local one.Positions are worked out against the 20 scored institutions in Pennsylvania and not against the country, so a program near the top here sits somewhere else entirely on the national list.
2
In-state rates vary enormously here.Published annual in-state graduate tuition among the 20 Pennsylvania institutions that report one runs from $9,288 to $36,650, a 4-fold spread inside one state and one reporting year.
3
Mostly private institutions.17 of the 20 institutions with federal figures are private, so most published rates here do not turn on residency, and private sticker prices are discounted more heavily than public ones.
4
About half are delivered at a distance.9 of the 20 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.
Three published figures, weighted. Scores are relative to the
20 institutions on this page and to nothing
else.
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.
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.
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 20 DNP Programs In Pennsylvania, 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 20 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 Pennsylvania, with what the federal record
publishes for it and how its score was composed.
West Chester runs a cohort model over six semesters, and the detail that shapes your calendar is that those semesters are fall and spring only. No summer terms means the sequence is fixed at three academic years, with no way to accelerate through a break. The curriculum splits into three named blocks, 10 credits of nursing science, 9 of leadership and 16 of practice, so 35 credits with practice carrying the largest share. It builds on a master’s rather than starting from a bachelor’s. School-wide average graduate tuition here, which excludes DNP add-on charges, sits in the lowest third of the 306 accredited institutions that publish a rate, in the 2023-24 federal figures.
Villanova is blunt about what its nurse anesthesia track takes: more than 2,000 hours of clinical experience and no fewer than 700 cases, and the college states plainly that the average weekly commitment may run to 60 hours or more. That is a full-time job with a doctorate attached, and it is the frankest statement of the trade any school on this site publishes. Rotations move you deliberately from simple to complex cases across several sites rather than keeping you in one. The post-master’s track is a different proposition: it starts in early summer with an on-campus residency, so your first commitment is a fixed date rather than a rota you can negotiate.
Robert Morris runs two practitioner doctorates and publishes both as course sequences, which shows you what the training actually contains. The psychiatric mental health route is the more detailed of the two: separate practicums for diagnosis across the lifespan, for managing disorders in two stages, for psychotherapy with individuals and again with families, and one specifically on psychiatric care of older adults. Psychotherapy with families as its own supervised course is not standard, and it matters if you expect to work with them. The family practice route covers women’s health, adults in two stages, and children and adolescents, each with a practicum of its own. Both run on campus and by distance education, and both lead to specialty certification eligibility.
Waynesburg asks for a portfolio, capped at 25 pages, evidencing your professional career. Almost no nursing doctorate requires one, and it takes real time to assemble. It also wants a written letter of support from your clinical practice setting, so your employer has to know you are applying. Advanced practice nurses show either national certification or 500 documented hours of clinical practice from their master’s. A graduate degree in another discipline is accepted alongside a nursing bachelor’s, but it gets evaluated individually and additional master’s-level courses are added. One deadline is easy to miss: you must start within a year of being admitted, and applications go inactive and are destroyed after a year. The degree is 36 credits over three or four years.
Chatham runs a 27-credit low-residency post-master’s doctorate that can be finished in four terms, one of the shorter honest routes on this site. The 500-hour rule is the one to read carefully: if you have not completed 500 clinical hours before you enroll, the shortfall has to be made up during the program, and it is required for the degree to be conferred. A lighter master’s practicum turns into extra work here rather than a waiver. The admission essay asks you to describe a clinical problem in your own practice setting and explain how you would spend those 500 hours changing it, so the application is effectively a project proposal. There is no prerequisite course list, but faculty expect research methods and statistics behind you.
Gannon runs its DNP as a bridge from an MSN rather than as a standalone doctorate, and it sizes that bridge to what you already did: 26 to 32 credits, with where you land inside that range decided by how many clinical hours your master’s brought with it. Six credits is a semester’s difference, so it is worth establishing early rather than after you enroll. It charges one published rate whichever state you live in, so residency does not move the price here the way it does at a public university. And it confers a substantial number of doctorates a year for a private institution of about 4,200 students, which points to an established program rather than a new one.
Messiah runs three doctoral tracks online, family nurse practitioner, nurse educator and nursing leadership, and the leadership one is written for nurses who already hold a master’s in nursing or a related field. The practitioner route is the heavy one, published at 82 credits with 1,215 clinical hours, which is a bachelor’s-entry load rather than a top-up. Messiah also advertises no-fee tuition, meaning the published rate is the rate rather than a base you add course and technology charges to, and that is worth checking against whatever you compare it with. It is a small private university, so the doctoral cohort is small, and every track is taught online rather than in Mechanicsburg.
Jefferson’s nurse anesthesia doctorate publishes the number that matters most in that field: more than 650 anesthetics administered across over 2,000 clinical hours, inside an integrated 36-month, nine-semester program of 85 credits, accredited through 2029. Case volume is what separates anesthesia programs from each other, and most of them do not state it. The condition attached is unusual and expensive to miss. Every student must hold active Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware nursing licenses before clinical work starts, and keep all three current for the whole program, because the rotations cross state lines. Three licenses, three renewal cycles, three sets of fees. From fall 2026 the college is adding program options in Center Valley through a partnership with a 33-hospital health network.
Temple houses its nursing doctorate inside a college of public health rather than a standalone school of nursing, so the people around you are epidemiologists, biostatisticians and physical therapists as well as nurses. That shapes the degree toward population-level work. Classes meet one day a week at the Health Sciences Center, which is the most useful scheduling fact on this card, because it lets you plan a year of shifts around one fixed day. Many courses mix online and in-person delivery. Both entries, from a bachelor’s and from a master’s, run full-time or part-time, and you can take the degree with or without a concentration. The scholarly project starts in your first year rather than waiting until the end.
PennWest runs its doctorate fully online at 27 credits, taken part-time across five semesters. The hour arithmetic is the part to read twice: the degree requires 1,000 clinical hours counted across your master’s and this program together, it accepts 500 transferred hours from master’s-level work, and it builds in a further 504 practicum hours. A nurse arriving with a full master’s practicum has a clear path through that, and one arriving short does not. You have to supply written documentation of the hours your master’s included at the point of application rather than later. A master’s in a related field such as business or health science can qualify you if you also hold a bachelor’s in nursing.
Wilkes runs its post-master’s doctorate online and mostly asynchronously, and it counts indirect clinical hours toward the total, which matters if your work is systems and leadership rather than direct patient care. How many hours you owe depends on what your master’s already covered, so the number gets settled against your transcript instead of being published as one figure. The catalog also carries a course whose stated purpose is giving students more time to finish the required 1,000 hours. That is a quiet admission that the hours are where people run long, and it is more useful than a completion estimate. If you are here to move into a leadership role rather than a new clinical population, the shape fits that.
Scranton runs a 30-credit post-master’+A+’s leadership DNP at $772 per credit, which is one of the few programs on this site to publish a per-credit rate rather than an annual figure, and it makes the arithmetic straightforward. The format is executive: online coursework built on the assumption that you are practicing full-time while you study, which is a design choice rather than a concession. All students complete a minimum of 1,000 clinical hours toward the capstone, and advanced practice students are credited for hours already completed in a master’+A+’s specialty. The framing is Jesuit, with the emphasis on ethical leadership and service alongside the clinical content.
2 DNP tracks at this
institution, Family nurse practitioner, Nursing practice (general). Ranked once, on the largest.
Holy Family runs its post-master’s doctorate online for advanced practice registered nurses, and takes you part-time or full-time, so the pace is yours rather than a cohort’s. The admission conditions are specific and worth reading before you pay an application fee. Your BSN or MSN has to come from a program accredited by CCNE, ACEN or CNEA, the undergraduate grade point average floor is 3.0, and the application asks for a statement of goals naming the scholarly project you intend to pursue. That last one is unusual at application stage, because most schools let you settle the project after you enroll. Holy Family also files a family nurse practitioner track beside the general doctorate. It is a private university of about 3,200 students, and the doctoral cohort is small to match.
Carlow runs a women’s health and gender-related nurse practitioner master’s alongside its family practice route, a specialization very few schools staff and a real alternative if that is the population you want to work with. The doctorate sits above them and is filed federally as a distance program. The psychiatric mental health practitioner route and its post-master’s certificate are taught online. This is a small Catholic university in Pittsburgh founded by the Sisters of Mercy, and its doctoral output against size sits in the top third of accredited institutions nationally, so the program is a genuine part of the place rather than an add-on.
2 DNP tracks at this
institution, Nursing administration, Nursing practice (general). Ranked once, on the largest.
Duquesne’+A+’s DNP is hybrid, and its nurse anesthesia curriculum rotates you through adult, pediatric, obstetric and ambulatory anesthesia rather than concentrating in one setting, which is the breadth a certification exam assumes. Nineteen doctorates a year from a private university of 8,234 in Pittsburgh puts it among the more established programs in western Pennsylvania, and federal records flag it for distance study. Pittsburgh has three accredited institutions to Philadelphia’+A+’s eleven, so the local competition for preceptors is thinner at one end of the state than the other. The nurse anesthesia route is a 92-credit plan across nine semesters and 36 months, and it wants two years of critical care behind you before you start. A residency does not count toward that two years.
La Salle runs two DNP routes that ask for very different lives. The post-master’+A+’s track is aimed at nurses moving into organizational policy, quality improvement and executive roles, and can be fitted around work. The nurse anesthesia route is a 41-month integrated hybrid program of didactic and clinical work ending in a scholarly project, taught through the Frank J. Tornetta school, and 41 months of it is close to continuous. Both sit in Philadelphia, where eleven accredited institutions compete for clinical placements, so ask early how each one arranges yours. Post-MSN students choose their pace explicitly, six credits a semester full time or three part time, and the required clinical hours vary with what you arrive holding. The post-BSN anesthesia route is built differently again: 24 months of coursework, then a 29-month clinical residency on site at the Tornetta program.
DeSales offers its post-master’+A+’s DNP full or part-time with two concentrations, clinical leadership and executive leadership, so the choice is between deepening practice and moving away from it. The detail worth planning around is financial rather than academic: acute care nurse practitioner students have access to partner loan repayment of up to $65,000 for a three-year commitment, which changes the arithmetic considerably for anyone willing to sign one. Admission runs on cohort deposits with fixed deadlines, so a place is held by paying rather than by accepting. DeSales gates each track on prior experience rather than on one blanket requirement. The family route wants 24 months caring for adults, the adult-gerontology acute care route 24 months of adult acute or ICU work, and the psychiatric route 24 months in mental health, all before you enter the clinical sequence.
Drexel sets an entry floor other schools leave implicit: no fewer than 400 precepted practice hours completed during your graduate studies, documented on a verification form your previous program has to sign. If your master’s practicum fell short of that, you are not eligible yet, and it is worth checking that before anything else. The cumulative graduate grade point average floor is 3.2, above the usual 3.0. Two tracks run. The advanced clinical expert route requires you to already hold advanced practice national certification. The leadership route accepts advanced certification or the 400 documented hours in its place. The application asks you to identify a practice problem that intrigues you and say how the doctorate would help you fix it.
Misericordia has taught nursing for more than 75 years and carries Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education accreditation across the bachelor’s, master’s, post-graduate advanced practice certificate and the doctorate. Against a student body of a few thousand, its doctoral output sits in the top quarter of accredited institutions nationally, which is more than a university this size usually manages and suggests the program is a priority rather than an afterthought. The doctorate carries no distance flag in its federal filing, so plan on being in Dallas, Pennsylvania. The university also publishes merit and need-based aid that can exceed twenty thousand dollars a year for students who qualify.
Widener settles your clinical hours by audit rather than by rule. Every post-MSN applicant gets a gap analysis, in which the hours you completed toward your master’s are applied against the 1,000 the doctorate requires, and if that leaves you short you make up the difference inside the DNP project courses. Health systems leadership works the same way, with the shortfall covered by two specialization courses carrying roughly 150 to 167 hours between them. So two people admitted in the same year can owe very different amounts of clinical time, and you will not know which you are until the analysis is done. The GRE is not required.
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.
Commonwealth runs three doctorates with very different shapes. The nurse executive track is 29 credits over two years, fully online and asynchronous, requiring 1,000 clinical hours of which up to 500 can transfer from your master's if that program certifies them in a letter. A post-master's advanced practice pathway runs 33 credits. The nurse anesthesia track is the outlier: 36 months, hybrid, with year one online and years two and three in person at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville. It wants a year of critical care experience and CCRN certification by the February 1 deadline. Commonwealth will also defer 75% of your tuition until 45 days after the semester if you pay a quarter down.
Penn State sizes the leadership doctorate by how many practicum hours you still need: 38 to 46 credits from a master's, 61 from a bachelor's. If your master's already carried 550 hours, you need no further advanced practice clinical credits at all, and up to 450 practicum hours transfer into the educator pathway. Applications are rolling with three priority dates: March 1, July 15 and October 1. The most useful sentence on these pages is about placements, and it is unusually straight: the clinical placement team supports students in finding sites and preceptors but cannot guarantee top-choice placements. Planning for your practicum starts the day you are admitted, not later.
Penn's leadership doctorate is short and online: four semesters part-time, and the systems leadership route is quoted at 15 months. You can apply to the master's and the doctorate together and finish both part-time in three years or less, which is the route for a nurse who wants the practitioner certification and the executive degree in one application. Two things narrow it. The nurse practitioner and midwifery tracks are hybrid, with clinical rotations held inside the Philadelphia metro area, so distance study does not extend to them. And the nurse anesthesia doctorate runs 36 months full-time and wants two years of ICU or critical care experience at application. Penn's next accreditation review is Spring 2036.
Pitt publishes its accreditation dates rather than just the fact of it: the doctorate is CCNE-accredited from February 2024 through the end of 2034, and the nurse anesthesia program holds COA accreditation to 2030, its third consecutive ten-year term without citations. The nurse anesthesia route from a bachelor's is 85.5 credits, on campus and full-time, across nine terms over three years. From a master's it is 36 credits and fully online. The school states that its students administer 800 anesthetics against an accreditor minimum of 650, and average more than 2,500 clinical hours against a minimum of 2,000, which is the rare case of a program publishing the margin rather than the floor.
Choosing A DNP Program In Pennsylvania
What studying in Pennsylvania 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 Pennsylvania publishing both rates, the out-of-state rate runs a median of 1.3 times the in-state one. At Temple University the gap is $6,513 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.
With 24 to read, cut on the track before you cut on the school
That is more institutions than anyone reads properly, and the cut that removes most of them is the population focus rather than the ranking. A university with a strong doctorate may not run the specialty you want, and a track can be closed to new applicants while the rest of the program keeps recruiting. Decide the specialty first, then read what is left. The ranking above orders what remains on published tuition, conferrals and completion.
The Pennsylvania 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.
The distance flag here records delivery, not your week
9 of the 20 measured institutions in Pennsylvania 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
4 accredited institutions in Pennsylvania 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.
Nursys, the national
license verification system operated by the boards themselves
AANP places Pennsylvania 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 Pennsylvania 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 Pennsylvania
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.
Nurse practitioners in Pennsylvania have a median of $130,140, which ranks 33 of the 51 jurisdictions the survey publishes a median for, across about 10,670 people in the state.
Mid-table pay across one of the larger workforces the survey measures, which usually means the spread within the state matters more than the state figure does.
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
132
Of those, rural
70
Median score
12
Highest score
21
Most designated shortage in Pennsylvania is rural, 70 of 132 designations, but the
remaining 62
sit in urban and suburban areas, so eligibility is not only a country
question here. 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 12 against a highest of 21, 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 Pennsylvania
9 of the 24 accredited doctorates in Pennsylvania 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 Pennsylvania 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 20 institutions with federal figures here,
3 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.
9 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 Pennsylvania. The degree-wide questions are answered on the guides.
How many DNP programs are there in Pennsylvania?
24, which is more than anyone reads properly. The cut that removes most of them is the specialty rather than the score: a strong institution may not run the track you want, and a track can be closed to new applicants while the rest of the school keeps recruiting.
How much does a DNP cost in Pennsylvania?
From $9,288 to $36,650 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 Pennsylvania if you live there?
Yes, by $6,513 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 Pennsylvania?
Not fully. Pennsylvania 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 Pennsylvania?
A median of $130,140, within $2,160 of the national $132,300. Pennsylvania pays the going rate rather than a premium or a discount, which makes the other variables the deciding ones.
Does federal loan repayment apply in Pennsylvania?
It can. 132 designated primary-care shortage areas, 70 of them rural, so both kinds of site exist. Eligibility attaches to an approved site rather than to the jurisdiction, which makes it an employer question.
Can you study for a DNP online in Pennsylvania?
9 of the 20 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.
1CCNE Accredited Program Directory It decides which institutions appear on this page at all: the 24 in Pennsylvania below are the ones it lists as holding current accreditation for the Doctor of Nursing Practice.
2IPEDS 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 Pennsylvania, 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.
