2025 Best Critical Care Nursing Doctor's Degree Schools

Critical Care Nursing isn't the most popular doctorate program in the world, but it's not the least popular either. To be more precise it ranks #424 in popularity out of 862 majors in the country. So, you may have to do some digging around to find quality schools that offer the degree program. This list can help with that.

For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 6 schools in the United States to determine which ones were the best for critical care nursing students pursuing a doctor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 55 doctor's degrees in critical care nursing to qualified students.

What's on this page: * Our Methodology

• Best Doctor’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Critical Care Nursing School for Your Doctor's Degree

The critical care nursing doctor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:

Overall Quality Is a Must

A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To account for this we include a school's overall Best Colleges for a Doctor's Degree ranking which itself looks at a collection of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.

Other Factors We Consider

The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.

• Major Focus - How much a school focuses on critical care nursing students vs. other majors.
• Major Demand - The number of critical care nursing students who choose to seek a doctor's degree at the school.
• Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
• Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized critical care nursing related body.

Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for critical care nursing students working on their doctor's degree.

More Ways to Rank Critical Care Nursing Schools

The critical care nursing school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Critical Care Nursing Doctor's Degree Schools.

Best Schools for Doctorate Students to Study Critical Care Nursing in the United States

Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a doctor's degree in critical care nursing.

Top Schools for a Doctorate in Critical Care Nursing

1

New York University
New York, NY

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

13 Annual Graduates

New York University is a wonderful decision for individuals interested in a doctor's degree in critical care nursing. NYU is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of New York.More information about a doctorate in critical care nursing from New York University

2

University of Rochester
Rochester, NY

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

1 Annual Graduates

It is difficult to beat University of Rochester if you wish to pursue a doctor's degree in critical care nursing. University of Rochester is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the midsize city of Rochester.More information about a doctorate in critical care nursing from University of Rochester

3

Winona State University
Winona, MN

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

13 Annual Graduates

It's hard to beat Winona State University if you want to pursue a doctor's degree in critical care nursing. Located in the distant town of Winona, Winona State is a public university with a medium-sized student population.More information about a doctorate in critical care nursing from Winona State University

4

Maryville University of Saint Louis
Saint Louis, MO

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

11 Annual Graduates

Any student pursuing a degree in a doctor's degree in critical care nursing needs to take a look at Maryville University of Saint Louis. Maryville U is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of Saint Louis.More information about a doctorate in critical care nursing from Maryville University of Saint Louis

5

Oregon Health & Science University
Portland, OR

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

10 Annual Graduates

Located in the city of Portland, OHSU is a public university with a small student population.More information about a doctorate in critical care nursing from Oregon Health & Science University

6

Allen College
Waterloo, IA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

1 Annual Graduates

Allen College is a small private not-for-profit college located in the small city of Waterloo.More information about a doctorate in critical care nursing from Allen College

Critical Care Nursing by Region

View the Best Critical Care Nursing Doctor's Degree Schools for a specific region near you.

Region
Southeast
New England
Rocky Mountains
Plains States
Middle Atlantic
Far Western US
Southwest
Other U.S. Territories
Great Lakes

View All Rankings >

Rankings in Majors Related to Critical Care Nursing

One of 23 majors within the Nursing area of study, Critical Care Nursing has other similar majors worth exploring.

Majors Similar to Critical Care Nursing

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Nursing Practice	7,474
Nurse Anesthetist	1,403
Registered Nursing	976
Nursing Science	927
Nursing Administration	725
Family Practice Nurse/Nursing	683
Other Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing	339
Psychiatric/Mental Health Nurse/Nursing	193
Adult Health Nurse/Nursing	88
School Nursing	43

Notes and References

• The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
• The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
• Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
• Credit for the banner image above goes to Aleksahgabrielle. More about our data sources and methodologies.