Best DNP Programs

Salt Lake City metro

Best DNP Programs In Salt Lake City 2026

Two accredited institutions at opposite ends of the price range, and the cheaper of the two conferred thirteen times as many doctorates.
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Key Takeaways

  1. 1

    Every one of the 2 is inside the city itself. This guide counts the Salt Lake City-Murray, UT metropolitan area, which reaches further than the city, but no accredited institution in it sits outside Salt Lake City. So the metro definition costs you nothing here and the commute is the city's, not the region's.

  2. 2

    1 public, 1 private, and the cheap end is public. University of Utah publishes $8,461 in-state, against $43,008 at the next option up. Residency is the lever here, and that figure is one school's published year rather than a typical cost: it leaves out fees, insurance and what reaching a clinical placement costs.

  3. 3

    University of Utah is most of this metro. It conferred 91 of the 98 DNP awards recorded here, which is 93% of them, against 7 at Westminster University (UT). Treat the others as genuinely small programs rather than as alternatives of a similar size.

  4. 4

    1 of 2 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 Program Produces Almost Everything, At A Fifth Of The Price

The University of Utah conferred 91 DNP awards in the reporting year and Westminster University conferred 7. The University of Utah also publishes $8,461 in-state against Westminster’s $43,008, so the program producing the large majority of this metro’s doctorates costs about a fifth as much.

That combination is rarer than it sounds. In most metros on this site the largest producer is not also the cheapest, and a reader has to trade one against the other. Here the two point the same way, which makes the public option the obvious first look and leaves the private one to explain what it adds.

What it adds is not flexibility. The University of Utah is flagged for distance education in the federal survey and Westminster is not, so the larger and cheaper program is also the one more likely to work around a job. A reader whose constraint is scheduling rather than money still starts in the same place.

How This Ranking Is Scored

Three published figures, weighted. Scores are relative to the 2 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 Salt Lake 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 2 University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT · Public · offered online $8,461 91 65% 100
2 of 2 Westminster University Salt Lake City, UT · Private nonprofit $43,008 7 64% 0

What This Guide Counts As The Salt Lake City Metro

This guide follows the Salt Lake City-Murray, UT metropolitan statistical area. The Wasatch Front reads as one continuous urban corridor and the federal survey splits it into three metros, so Provo and Ogden institutions are excluded here and appear under their own areas. That split is a statistical boundary rather than a commute, and a reader in Salt Lake City may reasonably consider all three.

Municipalities Included

  • Salt Lake City, UT

Deliberately Not Included

  • Provo and Orem, UT The Provo-Orem metropolitan area, separately delineated. Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions is there and is therefore not in this list, despite sitting forty miles down the same valley.
  • Ogden, UT The Ogden-Clearfield metropolitan area, north along the same corridor and separately delineated.

The Best 2 DNP Programs In Salt Lake City, Ranked

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

Ranked 1 of 2

University of Utah

Salt Lake City, UT

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

Utah publishes two MS-to-DNP timetables and what separates them is where you did your master’s. Come from another institution and it is 35 credit hours, five semesters full time starting in fall or seven part time starting in spring. Finish a master’s at Utah recently and the same degree is 30 credits, three semesters full time starting in summer. Either way the clinical requirement is 480 hours. The college counts every clinical, residency and practicum hour you earned during your MSN toward the 1,000 post-baccalaureate hours the degree is built on, so what you still owe depends on what you already banked rather than on a fixed number.

In-State Tuition
$8,461
Out-Of-State
$29,701
DNP Awards
91
UG Completion
65%

Scored on

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

Visit University of Utah →

Ranked 2 of 2

Westminster University

Salt Lake City, UT

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

Westminster front-loads the remote part of its nurse anesthesia doctorate: the first two semesters are fully online and completed from wherever you are, and the clinical years follow. That order matters if you are still working, because it means the disruption arrives on a schedule you can see coming rather than immediately. It is a small private university in Salt Lake City of roughly 1,150 students, so the cohort you join is small by construction, and its federal filing carries no distance-education flag for the degree as a whole. Read that as a campus-based program with an online opening rather than an online one.

In-State Tuition
$43,008
Out-Of-State
$43,008
DNP Awards
7
UG Completion
64%

Scored on

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

Visit Westminster University →

Choosing A DNP Program In Salt Lake City

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

University of Utah and Westminster University are the whole of the field in Salt Lake City

University of Utah and Westminster University file their conferrals under a specialty classification rather than under Nursing Practice, so the credit total, the entry routes and the clinical hour requirement live on their own pages rather than in the federal columns this page ranks on. Ask them who arranges clinical placements, and take the licensure question to the Utah board of nursing rather than to the school.

Who Licenses You In The Salt Lake City 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.

Utah
Full Practice
Utah Board of Nursing and Certified Nurse Midwives

Every institution on this page sits in Utah, so one board licenses all of them and AANP classifies the jurisdiction as full 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 Utah . 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.

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.

Utah, designated areas
61
Utah, of those rural
43

These figures cover Utah in full rather than the Salt Lake 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. 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: Utah.

Studying From Outside The Salt Lake City Metro

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

Which Salt Lake 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: University of Utah

The lowest published in-state rate among Salt Lake City's publics, at $8,461 a year. An annual rate, not a program total, and it assumes residency.

If you are moving to Salt Lake City: settle residency before you apply

University of Utah publishes a $21,240 annual gap between its in-state and out-of-state rates, the widest of the 1 Salt Lake City public publishing both. Start with the registrar, not admissions.

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

University of Utah's own pages name a bachelor's entry. Others in Salt Lake 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: University of Utah

University of Utah 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: University of Utah

University of Utah carries the federal distance-education flag. 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 Salt Lake City?

2 institutions in the Salt Lake City metro hold CCNE accreditation for the Doctor of Nursing Practice. This guide counts the Salt Lake City-Murray, UT metropolitan statistical area rather than the city limits, so the figure includes institutions in 1 municipalities.

What counts as the Salt Lake City metro on this page?

The Salt Lake City-Murray, UT metropolitan statistical area. In practice that means these municipalities: Salt Lake City, UT. Places deliberately left out are listed on this page with the reason.

Is it cheaper to study for a DNP in Salt Lake 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 Salt Lake City-Murray, UT 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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