Best DNP Programs In Texas 2026

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (research)

Texas Tech keeps a public archive of its DNP projects, year by year, and it is the most revealing thing the college publishes. Graduates in it work as pediatric intensive care nurses, adult-gerontology acute care practitioners and directors of critical care services, with projects aimed at problems like burnout on level IV neonatal units. That is the range the program actually supports, described by the people who finished it. It is a health sciences center in Lubbock rather than a nursing school inside a general campus, so the faculty around you are all in health professions, and West Texas geography shapes where students end up doing clinical work.

In-State Tuition

$6,672

Out-Of-State

$18,972

DNP Awards

24

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (research)
• Offered online

UTMB draws a hard line between its routes. The BSN-to-DNP nurse anesthesia program is 112 credit hours over an intensive 36 months, which is roughly triple a post-master’s load and the honest price of becoming a CRNA. The executive leadership track works on a different clock: national certification, whether NEA-BC, NE-BC, CNML or CENP, must already be complete before the first practicum course begins, so it is a doctorate for nurses who have finished credentialling, not one that credentials you. Practitioner tracks let you build hours in acute settings, outpatient settings or both. Most post-master’s students accumulate their remaining 500 hours through the scholarly project rather than direct patient care.

In-State Tuition

$8,580

Out-Of-State

$24,189

DNP Awards

24

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (research)

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

Cizik School of Nursing sorts applicants by who they already are. The post-master’s tracks are written for practicing nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists, and for nurses moving into leadership rather than deeper into clinical work. The BSN-to-DNP routes are described as built for nurses who are still working, and the adult-gerontology acute care track within them prepares you to be the provider for adolescents and adults with complex illness. That is hospital medicine rather than primary care. If you are choosing between a leadership doctorate and an advanced practice one, this is a school that keeps the two visibly separate rather than folding leadership coursework into a clinical track and calling it both.

In-State Tuition

$10,038

Out-Of-State

$37,422

DNP Awards

44

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (professional)

Arlington states something almost no school puts in writing: you must carry medical insurance covering emergency department evaluation and follow-up treatment for needle-stick injuries and blood-borne disease exposure, and the university will not cover that treatment itself. The requirement comes from the UT System Board of Regents. It is not a large cost next to tuition, but it is a real one, and knowing which risks sit with you rather than with the school is worth more than most brochure copy. The college runs a wide graduate ladder beside the doctorate, including practitioner master’s routes in adult-gerontology acute and primary care, psychiatric mental health, and pediatric acute and primary care, plus registered-nurse bridges into most of them.

In-State Tuition

$9,206

Out-Of-State

$26,838

DNP Awards

86

UG Completion

54%

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (research)

Texas publishes the hidden costs most programs leave you to discover. The post-MSN DNP is hybrid across five semesters, and the college states plainly that tuition covers neither textbooks nor the travel and accommodation of getting to Austin for the on-campus portion, and that you will be charged $15 a year for liability cover. The 1,000 clinical practice hours sit inside the clinical specialization courses, and up to 500 hours completed during an MSN can be counted toward them. In-state graduate tuition is $11,688 against $44,908 out, one of the widest residency gaps in Texas. The post-MSN degree is 45 credit hours across those five semesters, which works out at roughly nine credits a term.

In-State Tuition

$11,688

Out-Of-State

$44,908

DNP Awards

15

UG Completion

89%

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (research)

UT Tyler runs its main doctorate part-time and primarily online at an average of two courses a semester, finishing in three years, a pace built around people who are not stepping back from work. The application asks for a three to five page paper naming your area of interest and saying why this program in particular, so the essay does real filtering rather than serving as a formality. Priority applications close 1 April for a fall start, with a final deadline of 15 June. Alongside it runs a very different thing: a 36-month nurse anesthesia doctorate that also prepares you as an adult-gerontology acute care practitioner, aimed at critical care nurses. Two credentials out of one intense sequence.

In-State Tuition

$7,020

Out-Of-State

$22,020

DNP Awards

15

UG Completion

54%

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (professional)

Corpus Christi’s doctorate is young. The practitioner track admitted its first class in fall 2016, seven students graduated in 2018, and an executive leadership track followed in fall 2019. Two routes run now, one clinical and one for leadership, so the program has had time to settle without being long established. Online students defend their doctoral projects to the university community rather than to a closed committee, which changes how the work ends and what it has to withstand. Graduates are pointed at South Texas health care and the projects reflect that, taking on problems in the communities the program serves. It is accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education.

In-State Tuition

$4,913

Out-Of-State

$15,348

DNP Awards

12

UG Completion

40%

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (research)

El Paso runs its doctorate as a post-master’s degree and pairs it with two post-graduate certificate routes, split by whether you already hold advanced practice registered nurse recognition. That split is the useful part: a nurse who is already an APRN and one who holds a master’s without that recognition are sent down different paths rather than into one queue. The college states plainly that it prepares graduates for practice across Texas and nationally, and the doctorate carries no distance flag in its federal filing, so plan on being in El Paso. In-state tuition sits in the lowest seventh on this site, and the out-of-state rate is roughly three times it.

In-State Tuition

$7,704

Out-Of-State

$23,462

DNP Awards

12

UG Completion

50%

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (research)
• Offered online

Texas Woman’+A+’s requires 540 practicum hours in your chosen area of clinical expertise plus a scholarly project, and it assesses at admission how many hours a post-master’+A+’s student is bringing forward. That assessment is the thing to settle early, because it decides how much of the 1,000-hour requirement you still owe. Provisional admission exists for applicants at or just above a 3.0: the first 12 credit hours must be passed at B or better, at least six of them in nursing. At $5,712 the published in-state rate is among the lowest of any public on this site, and the program carries a distance-education flag.

In-State Tuition

$5,712

Out-Of-State

$15,552

DNP Awards

8

UG Completion

49%

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (research)

UT Health San Antonio publishes the conversion most schools leave implicit: one semester credit hour of practicum equals four clock hours a week for that semester, and the ratio holds across every DNP track. Multiply it out before you enroll and you will know what a six-credit practicum term actually costs you in time, which is the calculation that decides whether a program fits around shift work. The school also publishes doctoral graduation rates and average time to degree by cohort instead of leaving you to ask. This is a health science center with no undergraduate arts college attached, so everyone around you is in a health profession, and in-state tuition sits in the lowest sixth on this site.

In-State Tuition

$7,767

Out-Of-State

$24,552

DNP Awards

6

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (research)

Houston caps what you can carry forward, and the number is worth checking before you compare it with anywhere else. The maximum clinical hours it will accept from an MSN is 500, whatever you actually logged. So if your master’s carried 700 or 800 practicum hours, two or three hundred of them stop counting the moment you enroll here, and the post-master’s DNP still runs 37 to 42 credit hours over eight semesters. Against a school that applies your full master’s total against the 1,000, that is a real difference in time rather than a technicality. Eight semesters is the published shape whichever end of the credit range you land on.

In-State Tuition

$8,685

Out-Of-State

$21,515

DNP Awards

6

UG Completion

65%

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (research)

Prairie View is a historically Black university whose college of nursing publishes its outcomes rather than keeping them internal: employment a year after graduation, first-attempt licensure pass rates, and on-time completion, each reported by cohort year. Schools that publish completion rates alongside pass rates are giving you the harder number as well as the flattering one. A doctoral student here was selected as a Jonas Scholar for 2024 to 2026, which is a national award for nurses working on projects in priority areas. The doctorate is accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education and carries no distance flag federally. In-state tuition sits in the lowest seventh on this site.

In-State Tuition

$7,387

Out-Of-State

$22,590

DNP Awards

7

UG Completion

43%

• CCNE-accredited
• Public
• Doctorate (professional)

Rio Grande Valley runs a 45-credit doctorate delivered entirely online and finishing in about two and a half years. What makes it worth a look is who it will take: a nurse holding a bachelor’s with a registered nurse license, or one holding a master’s, or one already certified as an advanced practice registered nurse, all enter the same program. Schools usually split those applicants into separate tracks, and consolidating them is simpler to navigate if your background does not fit a standard box. The degree prepares graduates for leadership and administration or for advanced practice. It is a young program, launched in 2022, so it is still establishing rather than long settled.

In-State Tuition

$7,842

Out-Of-State

$17,682

DNP Awards

6

UG Completion

51%

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

Abilene Christian teaches its online programs in seven-week terms rather than semesters, so you carry fewer courses at once and finish each of them faster. Its scholarship terms are written around continuous enrollment across consecutive parts of term, which rewards momentum and penalizes pauses, so the structure suits someone who can commit to a steady run rather than stopping and starting. Against its size, ACU confers nursing doctorates at a rate in the top eighth of accredited institutions nationally, so the doctoral program is substantial even though the university is better known for other things. The master’s beneath it runs 36 credit hours with concentrations in nurse education and nursing administration.

In-State Tuition

$43,900

Out-Of-State

$43,900

DNP Awards

50

UG Completion

59%

• CCNE-accredited
• Private for-profit
• Doctorate (professional)
• Offered online

West Coast runs its DNP entirely online and puts the fastest route at 20 months, which is at the short end of anything published by a school on this site. It also advertises no waitlist, and that matters more than it sounds. A lot of programs admit once a year into a fixed cohort, so a place can still be twelve months away after you have been accepted. The curriculum is built around strategic leadership and project management rather than around a clinical specialty, with the final four credits varying by the specialty you enroll in. It is a for-profit institution and its Texas campus confers a small number of doctorates a year, so this is a compact program rather than a large one, whatever the flexible format suggests about scale.

In-State Tuition

$13,903

Out-Of-State

$13,903

DNP Awards

4

UG Completion

11%

• CCNE-accredited
• Private nonprofit
• Doctorate (professional)

2 DNP tracks at this institution, Nursing administration, Nursing practice (general). Ranked once, on the largest.

Baylor confers 196 doctorates in nursing practice a year, which is among the largest outputs in the country and is explained by an online school running several tracks at once. The pediatric route splits in two and the college is explicit about the difference: a primary care track working with children and families, and an acute care track for pediatric patients with complex, critical or chronic illness in hospitals, intensive care units and emergency departments. The family route is post-master’+A+’s only, gated on an MSN in family practice, a 3.0 cumulative GPA and existing board certification. Note that the pediatric track is not currently offered at post-master’+A+’s level, so the two population focuses admit from different places.

In-State Tuition

$58,100

Out-Of-State

$58,100

DNP Awards

147

UG Completion

80%

• CCNE-accredited
• Private nonprofit
• Doctorate (professional)

2 DNP tracks at this institution, Family nurse practitioner, Psychiatric-mental health NP. Ranked once, on the largest.

Incarnate Word offers two entries with very different flexibility. Bachelor’s entry is full-time only and leads to either family or psychiatric mental health practitioner work. Master’s entry runs full-time or part-time and is scoped to advanced practice registered nurses and to nurses holding a clinically focused master’s, so a management or education master’s is not the intended input here. Full-time only on the bachelor’s route is the constraint that settles it for most working nurses, and the school states it plainly rather than burying it. Neither track carries a distance flag in the federal filing, so plan on San Antonio.

In-State Tuition

$35,050

Out-Of-State

$35,050

DNP Awards

5

UG Completion

51%

• CCNE-accredited
• Private nonprofit
• Doctorate (professional)

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

Texas Wesleyan frames its DNP around what the degree does to a career rather than what it adds to a transcript: staying close to direct patient care, moving gradually into leadership, or combining clinical work with teaching, policy and quality improvement. The college is candid that the executive endpoint is about shaping an organization rather than running a single unit, and that what it pays varies widely by health system size and region rather than by the credential. Six doctorates a year from a private university of 2,487 in Fort Worth makes this a small program by design. Up to 500 practice hours from a qualifying master’s can be transferred toward the 1,000 the degree requires.

In-State Tuition

$34,608

Out-Of-State

$34,608

DNP Awards

3

UG Completion

32%

• CCNE-accredited
• Private nonprofit
• Doctorate (professional)

St Thomas has the smallest doctoral output of any institution on this site, conferring about one degree a year, so treat this as a program to ask direct questions about rather than one with an established cohort behind it. The graduate ladder beneath it is more developed: a master’s with four concentrations, and a post-master’s psychiatric mental health certificate for advanced practice nurses that leads to eligibility for national certification in that specialty. The doctorate carries no distance flag in its federal filing, so plan on Houston. The university says it has taught nursing in the city for more than a century.

In-State Tuition

$33,784

Out-Of-State

$33,784

DNP Awards

1

UG Completion

69%

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

4 DNP tracks at this institution, Clinical Nurse Specialist, Family nurse practitioner, Nursing practice (general), Psychiatric-mental health NP. Ranked once, on the largest.

TCU runs something most nursing schools do not: a bridge from the practice doctorate to a research PhD, for nurses who already hold a DNP and want to move from implementing evidence to producing it. That route wants a 3.5 grade point average, with provisional admission considered at 3.0. It matters if you think you might eventually teach or lead research, because it means you are not choosing between the two doctorates permanently when you pick this one. The psychiatric mental health route from a bachelor’s takes three years and asks for a single year of nursing experience, which is a low floor for a psychiatric track and makes it reachable earlier in a career than most.

In-State Tuition

$61,650

Out-Of-State

$61,650

DNP Awards

4

UG Completion

86%