Best DNP Programs

Pittsburgh metro

Best DNP Programs In Pittsburgh 2026

Six accredited institutions, five of them private, and one public option priced at less than a third of the cheapest private one.
A yellow steel bridge crossing a wide river toward a compact downtown of glass and brick towers under a clear sky
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Key Takeaways

  1. 1

    6 accredited institutions, drawn from 4 municipalities. This guide counts the Pittsburgh, PA metropolitan area rather than the city limits, so the pool is wider than the city name suggests and every campus in it is inside one commute.

  2. 2

    1 public, 5 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

    Output is concentrated in one school. Chatham University conferred 61 of the 126 DNP awards recorded across this metro. A number that lopsided says where the cohorts and the placement relationships are, which a ranking position does not.

  4. 4

    4 of 6 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.

One Public Option, And A Private Field That Starts Three Times Higher

Five of the six accredited doctorates here are private, which is an unusual balance and it shows up immediately in the prices. Pennsylvania Western University publishes $7,716 a year. The cheapest private option in the metro, Waynesburg University, publishes $28,960, and the range runs to $48,986 at Duquesne University. So the first cut in Pittsburgh is not between schools, it is between one school and the other five.

That does not make the public option the answer. Pennsylvania Western conferred 4 doctorates in the reporting year against 61 at Chatham University and 24 at Robert Morris University, so the cheap route is also the small one, and a program that size is a different experience from one running fifteen times the volume. What the gap buys is worth naming rather than assuming.

The other thing this metro has that most do not is reach. Four of the six carry the federal distance-education flag, the highest share of any metro on this site, so a reader who cannot move to Pittsburgh still has most of this field available. The flag covers taught content and never the supervised hours, which happen with a preceptor wherever you live.

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. 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 Pittsburgh 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 6 Robert Morris University Moon Township, PA · Private nonprofit $34,360 24 66% 60.3
2 of 6 Waynesburg University Waynesburg, PA · Private nonprofit $28,960 17 66% 59.9
3 of 6 Pennsylvania Western University California, PA · Public · offered online $7,716 4 52% 50
4 of 6 Chatham University Pittsburgh, PA · Private nonprofit · offered online $43,518 61 63% 48.2
5 of 6 Carlow University Pittsburgh, PA · Private nonprofit · offered online $34,546 10 60% 39
6 of 6 Duquesne University Pittsburgh, PA · Private nonprofit · offered online $48,986 10 77% 31.7

What This Guide Counts As The Pittsburgh Metro

This guide follows the Pittsburgh metropolitan statistical area, which reaches past Allegheny County into Washington and Greene. Three of the six institutions are in Pittsburgh proper; Robert Morris University is in Moon Township, Pennsylvania Western University in California, and Waynesburg University an hour south. Every one of them is inside a commute if you live in the city, which is what makes this a single field rather than four separate decisions.

Municipalities Included

  • Pittsburgh, PA
  • Moon Township, PA
  • California, PA
  • Waynesburg, PA

Deliberately Not Included

  • Philadelphia, PA The other end of the state, and the subject of its own guide.
  • Erie and Scranton, PA Separate metropolitan areas with their own accredited institutions.
  • Youngstown, OH A separate metro across the state line, not a Pittsburgh suburb.

The Best 6 DNP Programs In Pittsburgh, Ranked

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

Ranked 1 of 6

Robert Morris University

Moon Township, PA

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

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.

In-State Tuition
$34,360
Out-Of-State
$34,360
DNP Awards
24
UG Completion
66%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 35.4
  • Established program 97.6
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 56

Visit Robert Morris University →

Ranked 2 of 6

Waynesburg University

Waynesburg, PA

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

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.

In-State Tuition
$28,960
Out-Of-State
$28,960
DNP Awards
17
UG Completion
66%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 48.5
  • Established program 77.7
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 56

Visit Waynesburg University →

Ranked 3 of 6

Pennsylvania Western University

California, PA

50 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Public
  • Doctorate (professional)
  • Offered online

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.

In-State Tuition
$7,716
Out-Of-State
$11,574
DNP Awards
4
UG Completion
52%

Scored on

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

Visit Pennsylvania Western University →

Ranked 4 of 6

Chatham University

Pittsburgh, PA

48.2 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Private nonprofit
  • Doctorate (professional)
  • Offered online

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.

In-State Tuition
$43,518
Out-Of-State
$43,518
DNP Awards
61
UG Completion
63%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 13.2
  • Established program 100
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 44

Visit Chatham University →

Ranked 5 of 6

Carlow University

Pittsburgh, PA

39 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Private nonprofit
  • Doctorate (professional)
  • Offered online

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.

In-State Tuition
$34,546
Out-Of-State
$34,546
DNP Awards
10
UG Completion
60%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 35
  • Established program 47.8
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 32

Visit Carlow University →

Ranked 6 of 6

Duquesne University

Pittsburgh, PA

31.7 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Private nonprofit
  • Doctorate (professional)
  • Offered online

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.

In-State Tuition
$48,986
Out-Of-State
$48,986
DNP Awards
10
UG Completion
77%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 0
  • Established program 47.8
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 100

Visit Duquesne University →

Choosing A DNP Program In Pittsburgh

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

What Pennsylvania Western University charges depends on where you live

It is the one public institution in the Pittsburgh metro publishing both rates, at $7,716 in state against $11,574 out of state, a difference of $3,858 a year. Residency is set by the state under its own rules rather than by where you sit to watch a lecture, so an out-of-state applicant should treat that gap as the first question rather than a footnote.

The 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

4 of the 6 measured institutions in the Pittsburgh 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 Pennsylvania is the field

This page covers the institutions inside the Pittsburgh 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 Pennsylvania carries every accredited institution in the state, and for a program you would attend at a distance the metro boundary means nothing at all.

Who Licenses You In The Pittsburgh Metro

Practice environment from AANP’s own state fact sheets, read 2026-09-08; AANP last revised the classification 05/2026. Boards from the NCSBN member directory, read 2026-09-08.

Pennsylvania
Reduced Practice
Pennsylvania State Board of Nursing

Every institution on this page sits in Pennsylvania, so one board licenses all of them and AANP classifies the jurisdiction as reduced practice. The school does not grant practice authority and never has; the license and the certification behind it do.

The board detail, the full AANP definition and the license verification route are on the state guide: DNP programs in Pennsylvania . 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 Pittsburgh Metro

BLS OEWS, May 2025, metropolitan area cut for Pittsburgh, PA, 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, Pittsburgh metroEmployedNational median
Nurse practitioners29-1171$119,6301,980$132,300
Nurse anesthetists29-1151$223,570500$236,590
Registered nurses29-1141$82,37029,360$97,550
Nursing Instructors and Teachers, Postsecondary25-1072$73,830720$80,250

Nurse practitioners in the Pittsburgh metro have a median of $119,630, across about 1,980 of them, $12,670 below the national $132,300.

A median is the midpoint of what people in the occupation are paid, so half earn less and half earn more; it is not a starting salary and not an offer. The metropolitan cut is a different survey area from the state one, so these figures will not reconcile with the state page and are not meant to. How BLS defines these areas .

Shortage Areas, And The Debt Relief Attached To Them

HRSA designated primary-care Health Professional Shortage Areas, read 2026-09-08. These are state counts, not metro ones.

Pennsylvania, designated areas
132
Pennsylvania, of those rural
70

These figures cover Pennsylvania in full rather than the Pittsburgh metro specifically. HRSA publishes designations at the level of the individual area, and rolling them into a metro needs a county crosswalk this guide does not hold, so the state count is what is shown and it is shown as a state count. What follows from it still applies here, because eligibility never attached to a jurisdiction in the first place.

Both federal loan repayment routes open to advanced practice nurses require working at an approved site inside a designated area, and the area’s score sets funding priority when applications outrun the money: Nurse Corps Loan Repayment Program and NHSC Loan Repayment Program. HPSA primary-care scores run 0-25; funding priority for loan repayment follows the score.

In a metro that is mostly urban the practical consequence is that eligible sites are a smaller share of the employers you are likely to interview with than the state count suggests, and they are usually federally qualified health centers, public hospital systems and university clinics rather than private practices. Whether a particular employer counts is settled by the program rather than by the designation, so check the site before you take the job.

HRSA’s shortage-area data portal maps the designations to the address. Paying for a DNP covers the routes that do not depend on where you practice, and the state guide breaks the designations down further: Pennsylvania.

Studying From Outside The Pittsburgh Metro

Most of the measured field here is distance-flagged, 4 of 6 accredited doctorates in the Pittsburgh metro, so the question is less whether you can study at a distance and more whether an out-of-state program offers anything the local ones do not. 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 Pittsburgh metro this cycle, and whether it will place you for supervised clinical hours near where you live.

Which Pittsburgh 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: Pennsylvania Western University

The lowest published in-state rate among Pittsburgh's publics, at $7,716 a year. An annual rate, not a program total, and it assumes residency.

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

Pennsylvania Western University publishes a $3,858 annual gap between its in-state and out-of-state rates, the widest of the 1 Pittsburgh public publishing both. Start with the registrar, not admissions.

If you hold a bachelor's: Chatham University states that route

Chatham University's own pages name a bachelor's entry. Others in Pittsburgh 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: Chatham University

Chatham 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: 4 institutions here carry the distance flag

Carlow University, Chatham University, Duquesne University and others 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 Pittsburgh?

6 institutions in the Pittsburgh metro hold CCNE accreditation for the Doctor of Nursing Practice. This guide counts the Pittsburgh, PA metropolitan statistical area rather than the city limits, so the figure includes institutions in 4 municipalities.

What counts as the Pittsburgh metro on this page?

The Pittsburgh, PA metropolitan statistical area. In practice that means these municipalities: Pittsburgh, PA; Moon Township, PA; California, PA; Waynesburg, PA. Places deliberately left out are listed on this page with the reason.

Is it cheaper to study for a DNP in Pittsburgh 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 Pittsburgh, PA 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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