What the federal record publishes for each program, and how its score
was composed.
Ranked 1 of 15
Birmingham, AL
80 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Samford files six separate DNP records federally, covering nurse anesthesia, family practice, psychiatric mental health, emergency and trauma, nursing administration and a general track. That much specialty breadth is unusual for a private university of about 6,000 students, and it puts Samford in the top tenth of accredited institutions both for the number of nursing doctorates it confers and for how many it confers against its size. The nurse anesthesia program is accredited by the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs, and the next review is scheduled for spring 2035, which is settled well past the length of any program you would start now. The nurse leader track pairs online coursework with practicum blocks you attend in person.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 57.9
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 63
Ranked 2 of 15
Baltimore, MD
77.7 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
Hopkins calls the advanced practice doctorate online, and then adds the condition that decides it: from the fall 2024 intake you have to be living in Maryland or Washington DC by the third semester, because that is where the clinical placements are. Read that before anything else. The adult-gerontological acute care track runs 70 credits with 840 clinical hours plus 160 project practicum hours, and wants a year of full-time RN work with unstable, technology-dependent patients in intensive, intermediate, progressive, stepdown or telemetry care before you start. Nurse anesthesia is taught on site rather than online, and applies in a different cycle: 1 September for a summer start against 1 November and 15 January for the practitioner tracks. Undergraduate statistics has to be a B, and the school says a B minus will not be accepted.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 25.5
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 33.9
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 69.6
Ranked 4 of 15
Spring Arbor, MI
64.4 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Spring Arbor built its online DNP around a calendar rather than a semester. Courses run seven weeks with a one-week break between them, and the degree is designed to finish in 20 months, which is short enough to change the arithmetic if you are weighing a doctorate against staying where you are. Alongside the degree it runs three online post-master’s certificates, and they are scoped to who you already are: family nurse practitioner in two versions, one for nurse practitioners converting and one for nurses who are not yet NPs, an adult-gerontology primary care route for non-NPs, and a nurse educator certificate.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 65
- Established program 75.9
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 34.8
Ranked 5 of 15
Columbia, SC
62.3 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
South Carolina publishes a semester count for every route, and the spread is wide enough to matter. The post-master’s clinical expert major is 33 credits over six semesters. Healthcare leadership runs 36 to 39 credits over seven. Nursing education is the widest of them, 33 to 60 hours over six to nine semesters, because what you need depends on what you arrive holding. From a BSN the commitment is different in kind: those options run nine, eleven or twelve semesters depending on the route, which is three to four years before you account for anything slipping. Full-time and part-time plans of study are published for the BSN entry point.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 91.5
- Established program 42.8
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 67.4
Ranked 6 of 15
Winona, MN
59.9 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Winona State scopes its post-master’s doctorate narrowly: your master’s has to be in nursing with a focus in administration or leadership. A clinical practitioner master’s is not the intended input here, which makes this a leadership doctorate in substance as well as in name. A year of clinical nursing experience in a master’s-level role is recommended on top of that. The provision worth knowing before you commit is that you can take up to 12 credits as a non-degree student and transfer them in once you are accepted. That lets you test the program and the workload against your life before carrying a full application, which very few schools allow.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 96.4
- Established program 54
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 19.6
Ranked 7 of 15
Pittsburgh, PA
57.6 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 45.3
- Established program 62.7
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 63
Ranked 8 of 15
Madison, WI
53.1 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
Edgewood runs two doctorates with different accreditors and different purposes. The nurse anesthesia program is new, launched in 2025, accredited by the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs, and it leads to eligibility for the national certification examination and licensure as a certified registered nurse anesthetist. The executive leadership doctorate is the older one, accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education and approved by the Wisconsin Board of Nursing. It needs a minimum of 30 credits over two years full-time, and the practicum is sized to you, between 500 and 1,000 hours depending on what your master’s already covered. Its coursework runs to epidemiology, biostatistics, healthcare finance, informatics and quality management, so it is a management degree in substance as well as in name.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 61.8
- Established program 58.6
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 26.1
Ranked 9 of 15
Evansville, IN
50.1 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Southern Indiana publishes three separate credit totals and the gap between them is most of the decision. The post-master’s advanced nursing practice route is 35 credits in the specialty. The BSN-to-DNP family nurse practitioner route is 72. Organizational and systems leadership, also from a BSN, is 70 with 1,000 practice hours attached. What makes the post-master’s route worth a close look is the transfer policy: the college accepts up to 42 credit hours from your MSN, which is more generous than most and is why that first number is as low as it is. Coursework is online with synchronous intensives twice a year, so there are fixed dates in the diary rather than an open-ended commitment.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 95.6
- Established program 42.8
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 0
Ranked 10 of 15
Providence, RI
49.8 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
Rhode Island College runs its DNP as two distinct programs. The BSN-to-DNP is a dual nurse practitioner route, and its adult-gerontology acute care option prepares you to certify as both a clinical nurse specialist and a nurse practitioner, so it is two credentials out of one program rather than the usual one. That route is mostly online and can be taken full or part time, but it wants at least a year of acute care behind you first. The MSN-to-DNP leadership program is the separate track for nurses who already hold a master’s. One administrative limit is worth knowing before you start: no more than six credits taken at the college as a non-matriculated student will count toward the degree, so testing the water has a ceiling.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 94.7
- Established program 42.8
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 0
Ranked 11 of 15
California, PA
48.8 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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 97.3
- Established program 35.7
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 8.7
Ranked 12 of 15
Oklahoma City, OK
47.4 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Oklahoma publishes the conversion most schools leave implicit: one credit hour of practice inquiry equals 64 clinical hours. That single line lets you work out what a given semester actually costs you in time rather than in credits. The degree spans 35 to 51 credit hours and 1,000 to 1,280 clinical hours depending on route, split into 31 didactic credits and 20 clinical. For nurse anesthesia from a BSN the college describes its strongest applicants rather than just its minimum: a grade point average above 3.5, at least two years of critical care, and demonstrated unit leadership through charge roles, preceptorships or governance. The interview runs two to three hours.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 100
- Established program 15.8
Ranked 13 of 15
Omaha, NE
37.5 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Creighton is unusually direct about what the degree costs you in time. Its own page warns that full-time students may struggle to hold down full-time work, and it puts the scholarly project at roughly 30 to 40 hours a semester on top of coursework, which is the kind of number most schools leave you to discover after you enroll. Coursework across all tracks and specializations runs online, full time or part time. Nurse anesthesia is the exception in scale rather than in format: 2,250 clinical hours spread across large metropolitan hospitals, rural and specialty hospitals and community clinics, so the rotations are deliberately not all in one kind of setting.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 48.1
- Established program 15.8
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 76.1
Ranked 14 of 15
Toledo, OH
32.2 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Toledo splits its DNP by how much of it you can do from home. The nurse executive and nurse leadership pathways are delivered entirely online. The nurse practitioner tracks are not: they combine online coursework with required in-person clinical experiences and on-campus skills immersion days the college strongly recommends rather than mandates, so the honest planning assumption is that you will be traveling. Nurse anesthesia is a different scale again at 97 credits. One admission rule catches people out: coursework more than seven years old at the point you apply will not count, so a master’s you finished a decade ago may not carry across the way you expect.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 94.3
- Established program 0
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 19.6
Ranked 15 of 15
Boston, MA
26.8 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
This is a graduate health professions school rather than a university with a nursing college inside it, and the doctorate is built for people already running something. The curriculum is modeled on executive MBA programs, which here means online coursework broken up by in-person intensives rather than a fully remote degree. You pick the pace at admission: four semesters or five, with two part-time options beside them, and the choice is framed around what your job will tolerate. Everyone on this campus is in a health profession, so the people in your cohort are clinicians rather than general graduate students. Against an enrollment of about 1,700 it confers nursing doctorates at one of the higher rates in the country, which is what a specialist campus looks like in the federal data.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 0
- Established program 42.8
