Best DNP Programs

Washington DC metro

Best DNP Programs In Washington DC 2026

Four accredited institutions across a state line where the license changes: the District grants nurse practitioners full practice authority and Virginia is the most restrictive category AANP publishes.
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Key Takeaways

  1. 1

    4 accredited institutions, drawn from 3 municipalities. This guide counts the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV 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, 3 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. George Mason University conferred 21 of the 49 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

    2 of 4 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.

Price And Practice Authority Point In Opposite Directions

George Mason University publishes $10,392 a year, the cheapest doctorate in this metro by a factor of nearly four. It is in Virginia, which AANP classifies as restricted practice, its most constrained category: state law requires career-long supervision, delegation or team management by another provider before a nurse practitioner can see patients at all.

George Washington University publishes $67,420, the most expensive in the metro. It is in the District, which AANP classifies as full practice: nurse practitioners evaluate, diagnose, order and interpret tests and prescribe under the board’s own authority. So in this metro the price ladder and the practice-authority ladder run in opposite directions, and they are separated by a bridge.

The two decisions are genuinely separable, which is the useful part. Where you study and where you license are different questions, and a graduate of a Virginia program can license in the District. But licensure by endorsement runs to months, and several programs want an active license in the state where your practicum will happen, so this is worth planning at application rather than at graduation.

How This Ranking Is Scored

Three published figures, weighted. Scores are relative to the 4 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 Washington DC 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 4 George Mason University Fairfax, VA · Public $10,392 21 68% 92
2 of 4 Marymount University Arlington, VA · Private nonprofit · offered online $39,270 10 54% 43.3
3 of 4 George Washington University Washington, DC · Private nonprofit · offered online $67,420 14 84% 41
4 of 4 The Catholic University of America Washington, DC · Private nonprofit $56,930 4 79% 21.7

What This Guide Counts As The Washington DC Metro

This guide follows the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria metropolitan statistical area, covering the District and the Northern Virginia side of it. Two institutions are in Washington itself and two are in Virginia, at Fairfax and Arlington, both a short drive or a Metro ride from the center. No Maryland institution in the accredited dataset falls inside this metro; the Maryland schools sit in the Baltimore metro and are excluded below.

Municipalities Included

  • Washington, DC
  • Fairfax, VA
  • Arlington, VA

Deliberately Not Included

  • Baltimore, MD The Baltimore-Columbia-Towson metro, separately delineated, with three accredited institutions of its own.
  • Salisbury, MD The Eastern Shore, and a separate metropolitan area.
  • Richmond, Norfolk and Charlottesville, VA Separate Virginia metros, each with its own accredited institutions.

The Best 4 DNP Programs In Washington DC, Ranked

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

Ranked 1 of 4

George Mason University

Fairfax, VA

92 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Public
  • Doctorate (research)

George Mason splits its delivery by what you are learning rather than applying one format to everything. Coursework runs on the Fairfax campus in a flexible hybrid or executive format, while clinical skill development happens the traditional way, in person and supervised. The clinical requirement is 1,000 precepted and mentored hours, and the doctoral work takes the shape of two practice inquiry project courses across two semesters rather than one long capstone. Tracks cover family primary care, psychiatric mental health and adult-gerontology, each built around a different patient population, and the coursework is named accordingly: clinical psychopharmacology and individual psychotherapy in the psychiatric track, pharmacotherapeutics and advanced pathophysiology in the gerontology one.

In-State Tuition
$10,392
Out-Of-State
$34,860
DNP Awards
21
UG Completion
68%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 100
  • Established program 100
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 46.7

Visit George Mason University →

Ranked 2 of 4

Marymount University

Arlington, VA

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

Marymount separates its two kinds of hours and publishes both: 750 direct patient care hours and 500 project hours. Counting them apart is more honest than one combined figure, because patient-facing work and the doctoral project make very different demands on a week. Bachelor’s entry leads to either family practice or psychiatric mental health certification, and the whole thing runs online. The program is explicit about its Catholic tradition and a servant leadership framing, which is information about the cohort you would join rather than a line of marketing. The Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education accredits the bachelor’s, the master’s, the post-master’s certificates and the doctorate.

In-State Tuition
$39,270
Out-Of-State
$39,270
DNP Awards
10
UG Completion
54%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 49.4
  • Established program 53.2
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 0

Visit Marymount University →

Ranked 3 of 4

George Washington University

Washington, DC

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

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

George Washington files four DNP specialties, family, geriatric, psychiatric mental health and a general track, and delivers them in a hybrid shape: coursework online with some on-campus time for testing and skills training. Online here means most of it rather than all of it, and the on-campus days are the ones that need planning if you are traveling in. Clinical hour requirements are set per specialty rather than across the degree, so the specialty page is where the real number lives. Tuition sits near the very top of the range on this site, which makes the funding conversation worth having before the application one.

In-State Tuition
$67,420
Out-Of-State
$67,420
DNP Awards
14
UG Completion
84%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 0
  • Established program 74.2
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 100

Visit George Washington University →

Ranked 4 of 4

The Catholic University of America

Washington, DC

21.7 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Private nonprofit
  • Doctorate (research)

Catholic University runs a joint doctorate and business master’s on overlapping credits, which is a different proposition from taking the two separately. The point of it is executive work in health systems, where you need the clinical grounding and the finance and operations side together. It runs fully online with optional in-person experiences. Admission to that route wants a bachelor’s and a master’s in nursing, a cumulative 3.2, and documented completion of 500 or more post-baccalaureate clinical hours, though the school will consider exceptions case by case. Documented is the word to plan around, because assembling that record takes longer than people expect. A straight doctorate runs from either a bachelor’s or a master’s for anyone who does not want the business half.

In-State Tuition
$56,930
Out-Of-State
$56,930
DNP Awards
4
UG Completion
79%

Scored on

  • Published in-state graduate tuition 18.4
  • Established program 0
  • Institution-wide undergraduate completion 83.3

Visit The Catholic University of America →

Choosing A DNP Program In Washington DC

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

What George Mason University charges depends on where you live

It is the one public institution in the Washington DC metro publishing both rates, at $10,392 in state against $34,860 out of state, a difference of $24,468 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. This metro crosses a state line, so a campus you can reach on a weekday may still be charging you an out-of-state rate.

The District of Columbia 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.

George Washington University and Marymount University carry the distance flag

2 of the 4 measured institutions in the Washington DC 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 District of Columbia is the field

This page covers the institutions inside the Washington DC 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 District of Columbia 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, And Which Side Of The Line You Are On

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.

District of Columbia
Full Practice
District of Columbia Board of Nursing
Virginia
Restricted Practice
Virginia Board of Nursing

This metro crosses a state line and the line matters. AANP classifies District of Columbia as full practice and Virginia as restricted practice. Those are different working conditions, not different labels: the least restricted category lets a nurse practitioner evaluate, diagnose, order tests and prescribe under the board’s own authority, while the more constrained ones require a collaborative agreement or career-long supervision by another provider before you can see patients at all.

So the school you pick and the state you practice in are two decisions, and in this metro they can be made independently. You can study on one side of the line and be licensed on the other, which is worth planning deliberately rather than discovering: licensure by endorsement runs to months, and several programs want an active license in the state where your practicum will happen rather than wherever you hold one now.

The board detail, the full AANP definition and the license verification route are on the state guides: DNP programs in District of Columbia and DNP programs in Virginia . 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 Washington DC Metro

BLS OEWS, May 2025, metropolitan area cut for Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV, 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, Washington DC metroEmployedNational median
Nurse practitioners29-1171$134,8404,050$132,300
Nurse anesthetists29-1151$223,150440$236,590
Registered nurses29-1141$102,71046,830$97,550
Nursing Instructors and Teachers, Postsecondary25-1072$94,740750$80,250

Nurse practitioners in the Washington DC metro have a median of $134,840, across about 4,050 of them, which is within $2,540 of the national $132,300. The two state figures behind this metro differ from each other as well: District of Columbia at $135,880 and Virginia at $127,810, which is a real gap for a metro people commute across.

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.

District of Columbia, designated areas
12
District of Columbia, of those rural
0
Virginia, designated areas
171
Virginia, of those rural
121

These figures cover District of Columbia and Virginia in full rather than the Washington DC 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. Because this metro spans a state line, a site on either side can qualify, and which state it sits in changes nothing about the federal programs. 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 guides break the designations down further: District of Columbia and Virginia.

Studying From Outside The Washington DC Metro

2 of the 4 accredited doctorates in the Washington DC 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 Washington DC metro this cycle, and whether it will place you for supervised clinical hours near where you live.

Which Washington DC 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: George Mason University

The lowest published in-state rate among Washington DC's publics, at $10,392 a year. An annual rate, not a program total, and it assumes residency.

If you are moving to Washington DC: settle residency before you apply

George Mason University publishes a $24,468 annual gap between its in-state and out-of-state rates, the widest of the 1 Washington DC public publishing both. Start with the registrar, not admissions.

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

George Washington University's own pages name a bachelor's entry. Others in Washington DC 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: George Washington University

George Washington 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: 2 institutions here carry the distance flag

George Washington University, Marymount University 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 Washington DC?

4 institutions in the Washington DC metro hold CCNE accreditation for the Doctor of Nursing Practice. This guide counts the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV metropolitan statistical area rather than the city limits, so the figure includes institutions in 3 municipalities.

What counts as the Washington DC metro on this page?

The Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV metropolitan statistical area. In practice that means these municipalities: Washington, DC; Fairfax, VA; Arlington, VA. Places deliberately left out are listed on this page with the reason.

Is it cheaper to study for a DNP in Washington DC 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 Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV 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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