Best DNP Programs

Winston-Salem metro

Best DNP Programs In Winston-Salem 2026

2 accredited institutions in the Winston-Salem metro, with school-wide average graduate tuition from $3,872 to $38,650 a year in state.
A wide road lined with mature trees curving toward a small cluster of downtown buildings in the distance
On this page

Key Takeaways

  1. 1

    One metro, two price worlds. Published in-state rates here run from $3,872 to $38,650, a spread of about 10 times inside one commuting area. Which end applies to you turns on residency and control, not on which campus you can reach.

  2. 2

    1 public, 1 private, and the cheap end is public. Winston-Salem State University publishes $3,872 in-state, against $38,650 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

    Output is concentrated in one school. Wake Forest University conferred 16 of the 24 DNP awards recorded across this metro, with Winston-Salem State University next at 8. A number that lopsided says where the cohorts and the placement relationships are, which a ranking position does not.

  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.

The Public-Private Gap Is The Price Story Here

School-wide average graduate tuition in this metro, which excludes DNP add-on charges, runs from $3,872 a year in state at Winston-Salem State University to $38,650 at Wake Forest University, about 10 times apart, in the 2023-24 federal figures.

The one public institution publishes $3,872 in state, and the one private institution publishes $38,650. Out of state, the public rate rises to $14,407.

Wake Forest University conferred the most DNPs in the metro in the reporting year, 16, and charges the highest graduate rate here.

These are average tuition figures for full-time graduate students across each institution, not a DNP price. Some doctoral programs add a tuition differential on top, so ask each school for its DNP rate per credit before comparing.

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. 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.

  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.

The Best 2 DNP Programs In Winston-Salem, 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.

Each card shows what the institution publishes.

Ranked 1 of 2

Wake Forest University

Winston-Salem, NC

50 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Private nonprofit
  • Professional practice doctorate
  • Offered online

Wake Forest runs its doctorate through the School of Medicine rather than a school of nursing, and three of its 30 credits are taken in the university’s law school. Health law and policy electives inside a nursing doctorate is not a combination other programs offer, and it tells you what this degree is for: leadership and policy rather than clinical practice. The program is 24 months, part-time and online, with no clinical component at all beyond a leadership practicum in the final semester, which makes it one of the few nursing doctorates you can take without arranging a placement. A new cohort starts each August, and admission wants a 3.0 in a master’s in nursing plus two references.

Tuition
$38,650
In-state
Tuition
$38,650
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
16
Completion
89%
Undergraduate
About the tuition figures
School-wide graduate average, 2023-24. Excludes DNP add-on charges.

Scored on

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

Visit Wake Forest University →

Ranked 2 of 2

Winston-Salem State University

Winston-Salem, NC

50 of 100
  • CCNE-accredited
  • Public
  • Professional practice doctorate

Winston-Salem State publishes both totals and both clocks, which makes the two routes easy to weigh against each other. Bachelor’s entry runs 78 semester hours with a minimum of 1,182 clinical hours and points at family nurse practitioner work, spread over six semesters and two summers, so about three years. Master’s entry runs 33 semester hours with a minimum of 510 clinical hours and takes roughly two years and a summer. The distance between 1,182 hours and 510 is the entire argument for finishing a master’s first if you are weighing the two routes. School-wide average graduate tuition here, which excludes DNP add-on charges, sits in the cheapest tenth of the 306 accredited institutions that publish a rate, in the 2023-24 federal figures, and the out-of-state rate is about 3.5 times the in-state one, so residency matters a great deal.

Tuition
$3,872
In-state
Tuition
$14,407
Out-of-state
DNP Awards
8
Completion
47%
Undergraduate
About the tuition figures
School-wide graduate average, 2023-24. Excludes DNP add-on charges.

Scored on

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

Visit Winston-Salem State University →

What This Guide Counts As The Winston-Salem Metro

This guide follows the Winston-Salem, NC metropolitan statistical area. Greensboro and High Point form a separate metropolitan area thirty miles east, and although the three cities are commonly spoken of together as the Triad, the federal survey delineates them apart. The Greensboro institution appears under its own area rather than here.

Municipalities Included

  • Winston-Salem, NC

Deliberately Not Included

  • Greensboro and High Point, NC The Greensboro-High Point metropolitan area, separately delineated despite sitting thirty miles east in the same urban region. The University of North Carolina at Greensboro is there and is therefore not in this list.
  • Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham, NC Separate metropolitan areas, each with its own field.

Choosing A DNP Program In Winston-Salem

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

Wake Forest University and Winston-Salem State University are the whole of the field in Winston-Salem

Wake Forest University and Winston-Salem State 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 North Carolina board of nursing rather than to the school.

Who Licenses You In The Winston-Salem 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.

North Carolina
Restricted Practice
North Carolina Board of Nursing

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

North Carolina, designated areas
210
North Carolina, of those rural
130

These figures cover North Carolina in full rather than the Winston-Salem 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: North Carolina.

Studying From Outside The Winston-Salem Metro

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

Which Winston-Salem 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: Winston-Salem State University

The lowest published in-state rate among Winston-Salem's publics, at $3,872 a year. An annual rate, not a program total, and it assumes residency.

If you are moving to Winston-Salem: settle residency before you apply

Winston-Salem State University publishes a $10,535 annual gap between its in-state and out-of-state rates, the widest of the 1 Winston-Salem public publishing both. Start with the registrar, not admissions.

If you hold a bachelor's: Winston-Salem State University states that route

Winston-Salem State University's own pages name a bachelor's entry. Others in Winston-Salem 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: Winston-Salem State University

Winston-Salem State 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: Wake Forest University

Wake Forest University 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 Winston-Salem?

2 institutions in the Winston-Salem metro hold CCNE accreditation for the Doctor of Nursing Practice. This guide counts the Winston-Salem, NC metropolitan statistical area rather than the city limits, so the figure includes institutions in 1 municipalities.

What counts as the Winston-Salem metro on this page?

The Winston-Salem, NC metropolitan statistical area. In practice that means these municipalities: Winston-Salem, NC. Places deliberately left out are listed on this page with the reason.

Is it cheaper to study for a DNP in Winston-Salem 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 Winston-Salem, NC 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.

Sponsored

DNP Degree Programs

Schools pay to appear in these listings. They are separate from our rankings, which no school can pay to change.