PhD Nursing Programs

Every PhD in nursing program in the United States

PhD in Nursing Programs

140 programs at 138 universities, each one checked against the school's own doctoral listings rather than a federal data dump. On-campus and online are ranked separately, because a funded residential doctorate and one you pay for while working are not the same purchase and one list would bury the second.

The 92 campus programs, ranked The 48 online programs, ranked

Last updated

On campus

92 Campus PhD in Nursing Programs

Scored on research funding, what the program pays its own students, doctoral scale and time to degree. This is the list if you can move and want to be paid to do the doctorate.

  1. 1. UW Seattle
  2. 2. University of Pennsylvania
  3. 3. Columbia
  4. 4. Duke University
  5. 5. New York University
  6. 6. University of California-Los Angeles
  7. 7. University of California-San Francisco
  8. 8. Johns Hopkins University

Online

48 Online PhD in Nursing Programs

Scored on how much campus time each one still demands, what it charges a credit, and how far it bends around a working week. This is the list if you are keeping your nursing job.

  1. 1. University at Buffalo
  2. 2. UTMB Galveston
  3. 3. OU Health Sciences Center
  4. 4. Texas Woman's University
  5. 5. University of Central Florida
  6. 6. Indiana University of Pennsylvania
  7. 7. South Dakota State University
  8. 8. Mizzou

What a PhD in Nursing Actually Is, and What It Is Not

It is research training. You spend four or five years learning to design studies, defend methods and write for peer review, and you finish by producing original research nobody has done. It is not a clinical credential. A PhD in nursing gives you no prescriptive authority and no advanced practice licence, and it does not expand your clinical scope by a single procedure.

That surprises people, and it is the most expensive misunderstanding in this field. If what you want is to practise at the top of your licence, the degree built for that is the DNP. The comparison is here, and it is worth reading before you look at a single program.

The other thing worth knowing early: there is no programmatic accreditation for a nursing PhD. CCNE and ACEN accredit BSN, MSN and DNP programs. Neither accredits research doctorates, so there is no accreditor's seal to check and nothing on this site pretends otherwise. What you check instead is the university's regional accreditation and where its research money comes from.

What PhD in Nursing Programs Pay, and Why People Take Them Anyway

Postsecondary nursing instructors earn a median of $80,250, with the bottom 10% at $48,800 and the top 10% at $129,500, across 77,960 jobs. Staff registered nurses earn $97,550. Nurse practitioners earn $132,300.

Read those three numbers in order and the arithmetic is uncomfortable. Taking a nursing PhD into faculty work costs about $17,300 a year against staying at the bedside, plus four or five years of not earning a full salary while you study. The nursing faculty shortage everyone talks about is partly a shortage created by that gap.

People take it anyway, and the good reasons are real. Faculty pay rises steeply with rank and with grant funding, research posts outside teaching pay better than either, and the work is different work. But go in knowing the first number rather than the last one. What the three career routes actually look like is here.

PhD in Nursing Programs by State

Each state page ranks what is in that state, says what separates those programs from each other, and gives the state's own nursing faculty pay against the national median.

PhD in Nursing Programs in Pennsylvania

9 programs

Florida PhD in Nursing Programs, Ranked

8 programs

Nursing PhD Programs in Massachusetts

8 programs

Texas PhD in Nursing Programs, Ranked

8 programs

Nursing PhD Programs in California

7 programs

New York PhD in Nursing Programs, Ranked

7 programs

Missouri PhD in Nursing Programs, Ranked

6 programs

PhD in Nursing Programs in Virginia, Ranked

6 programs

Nursing PhD Programs in Maryland

5 programs

PhD in Nursing Programs in Tennessee

5 programs

All 46 states with a nursing PhD program

Narrow It by What Usually Decides It

Fully Funded Nursing PhD Programs, Ranked

20 cover tuition and pay a stipend.

BSN to PhD Nursing Programs, Ranked

103 skip the master's entirely.

PhD in Nursing Programs With No GRE

76 have dropped the test.

Full PhD in Nursing Program Directory

All 140, by school name.

Questions People Ask About PhD in Nursing Programs

How many PhD in nursing programs are there?
140, at 138 universities across 46 states and territories. 92 are campus-based and 48 run online. That is the whole field, and it is small: American nursing schools graduate tens of thousands of DNP and master's students a year against a few hundred research doctorates.
What is the difference between a PhD in nursing and a DNP?
A PhD produces research and ends in a dissertation. A DNP applies research and ends in a clinical practice project. The PhD does not make you an advanced practice nurse and gives you no prescriptive authority. The full comparison is here.
How long does a PhD in nursing take?
The median published figure across these 140 programs is 4.0 years over 60 credits. Real completion runs longer than published completion, and the dissertation is where the difference happens. What actually moves the timeline is here.
Do PhD in nursing programs pay you?
20 of the 140 publish full funding: tuition covered plus a stipend for full-time doctoral students. Nearly all of those are campus-based, because funding is tied to being on site and working in faculty research. The funded programs are listed here.
Can you do a PhD in nursing online?
Yes, at 48 universities. Most still bring you to campus for a few days once or twice a year, and the size of that requirement is the main thing separating them. They are ranked on their own list, because an online doctorate you pay for and a funded campus one are not the same purchase.
Do you need a master's degree first?
Not usually. 103 of the 140 programs admit BSN-prepared nurses directly, which is now the preferred route at research-focused schools. Those programs are listed here.
Is the GRE required?
Not at 76 of the 140 programs here. Where it survives it rarely decides anything. What decides a nursing PhD admission is whether a specific faculty member wants to supervise your research question.
Is a PhD in nursing worth it financially?
Usually not, if money is the reason. Postsecondary nursing instructors earn a $80,250 median against $97,550 for staff registered nurses and $132,300 for nurse practitioners. The routes that pay more than bedside nursing are the ones furthest from teaching. The full picture is here.

Where the Figures on These PhD in Nursing Programs Come From

  • IPEDS, for institutional facts and doctorates conferred at the research level.
  • NIH RePORTER, for National Institute of Nursing Research awards, fiscal years 2021 to 2025. $538M sits behind the programs on this site.
  • BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, for wage medians and spreads.
  • The program pages each school publishes, read individually. Every card lists the pages its figures came from.

The scoring model is published in full, including the weights and what happens when a school publishes less than its neighbours.