Read these against the gap analysis rather than instead of it. The
cards show what the federal survey publishes; what your master’s
is worth to each school is a conversation you still have to have.
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
Nebraska publishes its admission floor instead of leaving you to infer it: a 3.0 GPA for full admission across all three entry routes, with applicants between 2.5 and 2.9 eligible for provisional consideration. That is worth knowing before an application fee. Entry is by BSN-to-DNP for nurses with an accredited bachelor’s, MSN-to-DNP for those with an accredited master’s, or a post-graduate track for holders of a master’s or doctorate, and the accrediting bodies accepted for the prior degree are named rather than assumed. Graduates move into advanced clinical roles as nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists and nurse midwives, or into nursing leadership. The school treats those as parallel destinations rather than one being the fallback.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 87.3
- Established program 100
Ranked 2 of 76
Tuscaloosa, AL
91.5 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
Alabama sets clinical hours by concentration rather than by degree, and the spread is wide. The college publishes 1,080 to 1,620 post-baccalaureate hours depending on which concentration you pick, against 540 for a post-master’s entry. A gap that size between two concentrations at one school is worth pinning down before you apply, because at the top end it is most of a year of placement. There is also a transfer rule that can buy time: the direct care core, meaning advanced pathophysiology, advanced physical assessment and advanced pharmacology, may transfer if you took those courses with a B or better within five years of applying. Five years is the part people miss. The doctorate carries no distance flag federally, so plan on Tuscaloosa.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 87.3
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 73.3
Ranked 3 of 76
Salt Lake City, UT
90.9 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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 92
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 64.4
Ranked 4 of 76
Fort Myers, FL
90.8 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
Gulf Coast publishes four separate DNP curricula and the credit totals are nothing alike, so the number that matters is the one attached to your entry point. The BSN-to-DNP nurse practitioner route is 81 credits, full time or part time. If you already hold an MSN with an advanced practice focus, you finish in 36 credits over five full-time semesters. Nurse anesthesiology is a different proposition again: 112 credits across nine continuous full-time semesters, 36 months end to end, and it wants a full year of ICU experience behind you before classes start in the summer. CRNAs who already hold a master’s take a 37-credit version over six part-time semesters instead. Anesthesiology is also the one route with a standing campus commitment, once a week from that first summer through to graduation.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 98.7
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 55.6
Ranked 5 of 76
Tucson, AZ
90.2 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
Arizona publishes a credit total and a clinical total for every specialty, and the ratio between them is the interesting part. The pediatric nurse practitioner route is 64 credit hours with 720 clinical hours. Executive health systems leadership is 50 credits with 630 practicum hours, so the leadership route trades away classroom time while giving up very little time in practice, which is not what most people assume about a track that is not primarily clinical. From a master’s, the post-master’s DNP is 35 credit hours. Setting that against the 64 the pediatric route takes from a bachelor’s is the clearest way to see what the master’s you already hold is worth in time rather than in money.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 86.6
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 67.8
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (research)
- Offered online
Reno’s school of nursing secures your clinical placements for you, which removes the single biggest obstacle in an online doctorate, and then adds the exception in a footnote: you place yourself for the residency component. Both halves matter, and the second is the one to plan around. The program is fully online and open nationwide. Two pathways run, one from a bachelor’s leading to clinical education leadership or nurse executive work, and one from a master’s for nurses already practicing as advanced practitioners or already prepared as educators. If you take the clinical nurse leader master’s here first, a number of its core courses transfer into the doctorate. In-state tuition sits in the lower fifth on this site.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 92
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 60
Ranked 7 of 76
Murray, KY
89.9 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
Murray State publishes its curricula course by course, with the credit weight and the clinical hours attached to each one, which is a level of detail most schools keep behind an advising appointment. The post-master’s route shows what that buys you: the doctoral project runs across three sequential courses carrying 180 clinical hours apiece, so 540 hours accumulate through the project itself rather than in separate placements. Bachelor’s entry splits into nurse anesthesia and family practice, and the family sequence front-loads assessment and diagnostics before primary care clinical courses at 180 hours each. If you want to know what a semester will actually demand before you commit, this is a school that has already written it down.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 91.7
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 60
Ranked 8 of 76
Lynchburg, VA
88.2 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (research)
Liberty dropped graduate biostatistics as an admission requirement for its post-master’s DNP, and that removal is worth knowing because biostatistics is the prerequisite that most often sends applicants back to take a course before they can apply anywhere. If yours is missing or stale, this is a route that does not stop you at the door. Alongside it the university runs a post-BSN to DNP with a family nurse practitioner concentration. Liberty is an unusually large institution, over a hundred thousand students, and it confers around fifty-four nursing doctorates a year, so the program is substantial in absolute terms while being small relative to the university around it.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 81.1
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 64.4
Ranked 9 of 76
Kansas City, MO
87.3 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Kansas City has run this degree since 2008, when it graduated the region’s first doctoral class, and the track list reflects that head start: adult-gerontology, family, primary care pediatrics, women’s health, psychiatric mental health, and a nurse anesthesia route available only from a bachelor’s. Women’s health as a standalone practitioner track is rare. The post-master’s side has three doors rather than one, and the second is the useful one, because nurses holding a master’s in leadership, informatics or clinical research management can enter, with national certification preferred rather than required. If your master’s took you away from direct practice, that is a route back. Plans of study are individualized, and you supply course syllabi so prior work can be assessed for transfer.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 86.7
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 53.3
Ranked 10 of 76
Fairfax, VA
87.2 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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 88.9
- Established program 93.5
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 67.8
Ranked 11 of 76
Oshkosh, WI
87.2 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
Oshkosh publishes seven named routes rather than two entries with concentrations bolted on afterwards, and the distinctions between them are real. From a bachelor’s you can go to family practice, nurse anesthesia or psychiatric mental health. From a master’s you can go to family practice, psychiatric mental health, or an executive emphasis aimed at leadership work. There is also a separate route for advanced practice registered nurses moving into psychiatric mental health, which is a different starting point from a general master’s and is treated as one. Naming the routes this precisely means you can tell before applying which sequence you would actually be in, rather than finding out at advising. Nurse anesthesia from a bachelor’s is the heaviest of the seven.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 94.2
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 43.3
Ranked 12 of 76
Highland Heights, KY
87.1 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Northern Kentucky puts a hard experience gate at the door rather than partway through: one year minimum of full-time critical care experience as a registered nurse, within the past two years, with employer verification on a form. Recency is the part that catches people out, because intensive care work from five years ago does not count however much of it there was. From a BSN the degree is 106 credit hours over nine semesters, three years exactly. The post-master’s nurse anesthesia route is 37 semester credits over six semesters instead. Between 106 credits and 37, the master’s you already hold is worth roughly two years here.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 88.4
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 50
Ranked 13 of 76
Norfolk, VA
86.9 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Old Dominion publishes two numbers about teaching that most schools keep quiet. Ninety-eight percent of didactic courses are taught by full-time faculty rather than adjuncts, and clinical practicum supervision runs at one faculty member to six or eight students. Those figures decide what your week actually feels like, and they are more useful than any completion statistic. The doctorate comes in two specializations, advanced practice and nurse executive, and a nurse holding a master’s can enter either. Both run online with immersion experiences built in. In-state tuition sits in the lowest sixth on this site while the out-of-state rate is more than three times it, so residency matters a great deal here.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 93
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 43.3
Ranked 14 of 76
West Lafayette, IN
86.9 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Purdue Global publishes the number most schools keep to themselves: it expects 15 to 18 hours of course work a week. That is the figure to hold up against your roster, and it is more useful than any completion estimate, because an estimate assumes you can find those hours in the first place. The doctorate runs nine courses and averages about a year and a half, taught entirely online. Nine courses is a short structure, which is what a post-master’s route looks like once the clinical core is behind you. This is a public online university of about 45,000 students conferring roughly forty nursing doctorates a year, so the program is real but small against the institution, and your cohort is scattered across the country rather than gathered anywhere.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 89.4
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 47.8
Ranked 15 of 76
Saint Louis, MO
86.5 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (research)
Missouri St. Louis does not run its doctorate alone. The program is delivered online cooperatively with the Kansas City and Columbia campuses, so the course pool is wider than one college could staff and its shape is set by all three communities. Coursework is distance learning with a three-day on-campus intensive. Two conditions decide eligibility before anything else. The university cannot admit online students from every state, so check yours against its authorization list first. And your grade point average is calculated on the last 60 hours of the bachelor’s, floor 3.0, which helps if you finished stronger than you started. The acute care pediatric tracks want a year of inpatient pediatric nursing behind you.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 81.4
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 55.6
Ranked 16 of 76
Chicago, IL
84.9 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
Rush prices its DNP in time rather than in one number, and the three entry points are genuinely different lengths. From a BSN it runs about three and two-thirds years. From a master’s in a non-APRN role it is three years, and from a master’s as a practicing APRN it is two. The clinical practicum follows the same logic: 756 hours from a BSN or a non-APRN master’s, and between 500 and 756 for an APRN, settled by a gap analysis of what you already hold. Nurse anesthesia ignores all of that at 36 months for everyone whatever they enter with, and it is accredited by the COA rather than CCNE, re-accredited in 2025 and running to 2035.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 51.8
- Established program 100
Ranked 17 of 76
Camden, NJ
84.5 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (research)
Rutgers Camden puts a hard experience gate partway through rather than at the door: you need at least two years of registered nurse experience before you can progress into Primary Care Clinical I. So the clock on eligibility keeps running after you enroll, which is unusual and worth mapping against your own service. The clinical volume is unusual too. Students complete roughly 1,400 to 1,600 supervised clinical hours, well above the 1,000 the degree standard sets. Clinical theory courses are taught in person on campus, with some of the scholarly and didactic coursework offered hybrid, and the school describes the program as rigorous and full-time rather than something to fit around a roster.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 82.8
- Established program 91.7
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 66.7
Ranked 18 of 76
Richmond, VA
82.9 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (research)
- Offered online
VCU is a large public research university in Richmond whose DNP is flagged for distance education in the federal record, so the online description holds up rather than being partial. It funds some doctoral students through graduate teaching assistantships, and the terms are published rather than vague: at least nine credit hours of registration, good academic standing, and 20 hours of work a week. That is close to a half-time job, so an assistantship here is a real commitment rather than a stipend. Residency matters a great deal at VCU, with the non-resident rate running close to three times the in-state one, so a Virginia address is the biggest single lever on what this costs.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 84.4
- Established program 89.8
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 62.2
Ranked 19 of 76
Johnson City, TN
80.5 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (research)
East Tennessee State publishes a semester count for every combination, which is rarer than it should be. Bachelor’s entry runs nine semesters full-time or fifteen part-time. Master’s entry runs four semesters full-time or seven part-time, but only while your doctorate stays in the same concentration as your master’s. Switch concentrations and you get an individualized plan of study instead of a published timeline, which is the school telling you the number will be larger. Coursework is delivered online and asynchronously. The college also guarantees admission to up to ten qualified ROTC students per cohort, which is a real advantage if you are one of them. In-state tuition sits in the lower sixth of the programs on this site.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 92.5
- Established program 85.7
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 51.1
Ranked 20 of 76
Brookings, SD
80.1 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
South Dakota State points its doctorate at rural and underserved practice, which is an orientation rather than a slogan in a state with that geography. Bachelor’s entry to the family practitioner route is 78 credits and 1,020 clinical hours, taught online with a field-based practicum and a few classes that may need a campus visit. The provision to check first is the three P’s. If you have already completed advanced pathophysiology, advanced pharmacology and advanced assessment to the standard the school wants, 12 credits come off your plan, and the school says that can turn a four-year program into a three-year one. A whole year turning on three courses is worth an email before you apply. A psychiatric mental health specialization runs alongside.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 93.1
- Established program 81.1
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 61.1
Ranked 21 of 76
Topeka, KS
79.8 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Washburn sets the doctorate against what you already hold rather than running one sequence for everyone. The school describes the program as advanced practice education matched to your entry education level, your certification and the practice you intend, so a bachelor’s-prepared registered nurse and a certified practitioner are not doing the same plan of study. The bachelor’s route is written for nurses who keep working through it. Delivery is distance accessible, which is the school’s own phrase and a more careful one than fully online. In-state tuition sits in the lower quarter of the programs on this site, and the out-of-state rate is about twice it, so residency matters here without being decisive.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 89.8
- Established program 85.7
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 51.1
Ranked 22 of 76
Omaha, NE
78.8 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
6 DNP tracks at this
institution, Family nurse practitioner, Maternal/Child Health and Neonatal Nurse/Nursing, Nursing administration, Nursing practice (general), Psychiatric-mental health NP, Registered nursing (general). Ranked once, on the largest.
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 31
- Established program 98.5
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 84.4
Ranked 23 of 76
Tyler, TX
78.6 of 100
- 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.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 94.2
- Established program 81.1
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 52.2
Ranked 24 of 76
Lakewood, CO
78.5 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Colorado Christian is explicit that it is a Christian university and that the doctorate is built that way. The curriculum is framed around biblical truth alongside the national nursing competencies, and admission asks for a stated desire to do doctoral work in a Christ-centered community. Read that as information rather than marketing, because it shapes who is in the cohort. The leadership track for master’s holders runs 520 clinical hours and you complete them where you already live, rather than traveling to a placement the school picks. Courses come in 5, 10 and 15 week blocks with a one-day online orientation. One caveat comes before all of it: the program is online but open only to students in certain states, so check whether yours is one.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 61.5
- Established program 91.7
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 63.3
Ranked 25 of 76
Harrisonburg, VA
77.8 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (research)
James Madison publishes three credit totals and one hour total. The post-master’s route is 40 to 46 credits, bachelor’s entry is 77, and healthcare systems leadership is 69, and every one of them carries the same 1,000 course-related practice hours. The hours do not move with your prior degree here, only the coursework does. The funding is the part worth chasing: a graduate assistantship covers full tuition and fees and pays a stipend, in exchange for 18 hours a week working with faculty. Eighteen hours is close to a half-time job, so it suits someone stepping back from clinical work rather than fitting a doctorate around full shifts. In-state tuition already sits in the lowest sixth on this site.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 92.5
- Established program 69.9
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 81.1
