2025 Best Nursing Bachelor's Degree Schools in Virginia

Nursing is of the hottest bachelor's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #2 most popular major in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.

College Factual looked at 26 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Nursing Bachelor's Degree Schools in Virginia ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 2,870 bachelor's degrees in nursing to qualified students.

What's on this page: * Our Methodology

• Best Bachelor’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Nursing School for Your Bachelor's Degree

Your choice of nursing for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:

Quality Overall Is Important

The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we include a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a host of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.

Average Earnings

To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.

Other Factors We Consider

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

• Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to nursing students as compared to other majors.
• Major Demand - How many other nursing students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
• 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.
• Student Debt - How much debt nursing students go into to obtain their bachelor's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
• Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized nursing related body.

Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for nursing students working on their bachelor's degree.

More Ways to Rank Nursing Schools

When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Nursing Bachelor's Degree Schools in Virginia list to help you make the college decision.

In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you. When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.

Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study Nursing in Virginia

The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in nursing.

10 Top Virginia Schools for a Bachelor's in Nursing

1

University of Virginia - Main Campus
Charlottesville, VA

120 Annual Graduates

$75,220 Median Starting Salary

Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in nursing has to check out University of Virginia - Main Campus. University of Virginia is a fairly large public university located in the midsize suburb of Charlottesville.

Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the nursing program state that they receive average early career wages of $75,220.

More information about a bachelor’s in nursing from University of Virginia - Main Campus

2

Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, VA

210 Annual Graduates

$71,847 Median Starting Salary

$11,490 Median Student Debt

Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in nursing needs to check out Virginia Commonwealth University. VCU is a fairly large public university located in the medium-sized city of Richmond.

Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the nursing program state that they receive average early career earnings of $71,847.

More information about a bachelor’s in nursing from Virginia Commonwealth University

3

James Madison University
Harrisonburg, VA

286 Annual Graduates

$76,490 Median Starting Salary

$35,741 Median Student Debt

James Madison University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in nursing. Located in the city of Harrisonburg, JMU is a public university with a very large student population.

Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the nursing program earn about $76,490 for their early career.

More information about a bachelor’s in nursing from James Madison University

4

Marymount University
Arlington, VA

104 Annual Graduates

$80,090 Median Starting Salary

$44,985 Median Student Debt

Marymount University is a good choice for students pursuing a bachelor's degree in nursing. Marymount is a small private not-for-profit university located in the midsize city of Arlington.

Those nursing students who get their bachelor's degree from Marymount University receive $5,173 more than the standard nursing student.

More information about a bachelor’s in nursing from Marymount University

5

George Mason University
Fairfax, VA

206 Annual Graduates

$78,365 Median Starting Salary

Located in the large suburb of Fairfax, GMU is a public university with a very large student population.

Bachelor's recipients from the nursing degree program at George Mason University make $3,448 above the standard college graduate in this field shortly after graduation.

More information about a bachelor’s in nursing from George Mason University

6

Shenandoah University
Winchester, VA

114 Annual Graduates

$81,678 Median Starting Salary

Located in the city of Winchester, Shenandoah is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.

Those nursing students who get their bachelor's degree from Shenandoah University earn $6,761 more than the standard nursing grad.

More information about a bachelor’s in nursing from Shenandoah University

7

Old Dominion University
Norfolk, VA

178 Annual Graduates

$76,527 Median Starting Salary

Old Dominion is a fairly large public university located in the midsize city of Norfolk.

Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the nursing program report average early career earnings of $76,527.

More information about a bachelor’s in nursing from Old Dominion University

8

ECPI University
Virginia Beach, VA

202 Annual Graduates

$77,550 Median Starting Salary

Located in the large city of Virginia Beach, ECPI University is a private for-profit university with a fairly large student population.

Bachelor's recipients from the nursing degree program at ECPI University get $2,633 more than the typical college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.

More information about a bachelor’s in nursing from ECPI University

9

Radford University
Radford, VA

258 Annual Graduates

$69,662 Median Starting Salary

$22,307 Median Student Debt

Located in the town of Radford, Radford is a public university with a medium-sized student population.

Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the nursing program state that they receive average early career earnings of $69,662.

More information about a bachelor’s in nursing from Radford University

10

Liberty University
Lynchburg, VA

291 Annual Graduates

$71,918 Median Starting Salary

$50,897 Median Student Debt

Liberty University is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Lynchburg.

After graduation, nursing bachelor's recipients typically make an average of $71,918 at the beginning of their careers.

More information about a bachelor’s in nursing from Liberty University

Best Nursing Colleges in the Southeast Region

Explore all the Best Nursing Colleges in the Southeast Area or other specific states within that region.

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Florida	225	9,015
Georgia	224	3,954
Tennessee	220	3,180
North Carolina	213	3,488
South Carolina	195	1,605
Kentucky	187	2,530
Alabama	184	2,607
Louisiana	171	1,963
Mississippi	169	1,307
Arkansas	167	1,371
West Virginia	147	774

View All Rankings >

Rankings in Majors Related to Nursing

Nursing is one of 34 different types of Health Professions programs to choose from.

Nursing Concentrations

Major	Annual Graduates
Registered Nursing	2,844
Public Health/Community Nurse/Nursing	14
Nursing Practice	9
Nursing Administration	3

Most Popular Majors Related to Nursing

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Mental & Social Health Services	571
Public Health	425
Health & Medical Administrative Services	336
Health Sciences & Services	260
Other Health Professions	220
Communication Sciences	193
Allied Health Professions	123
Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science	90
Dental Support Services	60
Bioethics/Medical Ethics	39

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.