Doctor of Nursing Practice programs
Every Accredited DNP Program In The Country, Ranked
All 394 institutions CCNE accredits for the Doctor of Nursing Practice, across 52 jurisdictions, ordered on published figures rather than brochures. 307 of them also file to the federal survey, which is what makes a tuition or conferral figure available: 301 publish a rate and 140 carry the distance-education flag.
- 394Institutions With An Accredited DNPCCNE
- 301Institutions Ranked On Federal FiguresIPEDS
- $132,300Median, nurse practitionersBLS OEWS, May 2025
No reputation polls and no paid placement in the ranking. How the ranking is built, and every figure with its source.
Everything here
The Whole Site, In Five Parts
Four ranked lists and an honest guide to each career the degree opens, a page for every jurisdiction, the wage data behind the roles, and the explainers that answer the question most people actually arrive with.
Rankings
Ordered on published tuition, conferrals and institutional completion, with the rubric's limits stated on every page.
390 institutions tracked, 301 of them ranked against the rubric
Locations
A page for every jurisdiction that accredits the degree, and the A-to-Z directory behind them.
52 jurisdictions, 390 accredited institutions across them
Top States by accredited institutions
Cities by accredited institutions with federal figures
Careers
What the degree actually lets you do, one honest guide per destination, downsides included.
10 role guides, each with the pay and the downsides
Salaries
Federal wage data for the occupations DNP graduates enter, with the attribution attached to every figure.
11 wage guides, by occupation of entry rather than by degree
Resources
What the degree is, what it is not, what it requires, and whether you need it at all.
10 explainers and articles
Not sure where to start
Five Questions, And We Point You At The Right Page
This does not pick a school for you, and nothing that asks five questions honestly could. What it does is send you to the page that answers your situation, instead of leaving you to guess which of 8 routes applies.
Pick the one that describes you:
- BSN To DNP You are entering from a bachelor’s, so the whole 1,000-hour practice requirement sits inside the program.
- MSN To DNP You already hold a master’s, so hours banked during it count toward the requirement and the program is shorter.
- The Post-Master’s Certificate You hold a graduate degree already, which is the route the certificate exists for.
- Online DNP Programs Distance-delivered coursework, with the clinical hours you still have to do in person stated plainly.
- The Most Affordable Programs Ordered on published in-state tuition, and honest about what that figure leaves out.
- Nursing Leadership Programs The executive and systems track, which is where the doctorate is least optional.
- Programs In Your State You are staying put, so the jurisdiction page is the shortest route to what is near you.
- The National Ranking Ordered on published tuition, conferrals and institutional completion.
Common questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you need a DNP to be a nurse practitioner?
No. A master's still qualifies you for nurse practitioner licensure and certification today. The recommendation to move advanced practice preparation to the doctorate set a target that was never adopted as a requirement, and the certifying boards continue to credential master's-prepared candidates. Nurse anesthesia is the exception: every accredited program in that field is now at doctoral level.
How long does a DNP take?
It depends entirely on where you enter. A BSN-to-DNP carries the whole 1,000-hour practice requirement inside the program and runs longest. An MSN-to-DNP is shorter because hours banked during the master's count toward the requirement, though how many a program recognizes is a program-by-program decision worth settling before you enroll. The post-master's certificate is shorter again.
What does a DNP cost?
This site publishes institution-level published graduate tuition, which is a real rate from the federal education survey. It is not a program total. A DNP is billed per credit, credit counts differ per track rather than per school, and most students study part-time, so multiplying an annual figure by a duration produces a number nobody is charged.
Does a DNP increase your salary?
Federal wage data cannot answer that, and any site that gives you a clean number is not using federal data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics classifies by occupation and never by credential, so a doctorally-prepared and a master's-prepared nurse practitioner appear in the same row of the same table. What the data does show is that the occupation you enter moves your pay by six figures.
Is an online DNP legitimate?
Yes, where the program holds accreditation. Distance delivery describes the coursework and says nothing about the clinical hours, which are in-person everywhere: no accredited program awards the degree without supervised practice hours. What varies is whether the school arranges your placement or hands you a list, and that difference is worth more than any ranking position.
Compare The Accredited Programs, Then Decide.
Every institution CCNE accredits appears somewhere on this site. The ones that also file conferrals to the federal survey carry published tuition, award counts and completion figures, and those are the ones the ranking can order.