2025 Best Nursing Practice Doctor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region
25Colleges in the Great Lakes Region
1,542Doctor's Degrees
Nursing Practice is of the hottest doctor's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #7 most popular major in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 25 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Nursing Practice Doctor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,542 doctor's degrees in nursing practice during the 2022-2023 academic year.
DEBUG: Checking offer "MS in Nursing - Population Healthcare" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MS in Nursing - Population Healthcare" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL) (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL) (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Clinical Nurse Leader (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Clinical Nurse Leader (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Clinical Nurse Leader (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Clinical Nurse Leader (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - Forensic Nurse (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Grad Cert - Forensic Nurse (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Forensic Nursing (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Forensic Nursing (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Forensic Nursing (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Forensic Nursing (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Health/Nursing Informatics (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Health/Nursing Informatics (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Health/Nursing Informatics (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Health/Nursing Informatics (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Health Systems Management (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Health Systems Management (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Nurse Administrator (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Nurse Administrator (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - Nurse Administrator (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Grad Cert - Nurse Administrator (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Nurse Administrator (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Nurse Administrator (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Nurse Executive Leader (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Nurse Executive Leader (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Nurse Executive Leadership (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Nurse Executive Leadership (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Nurse Executive Leadership (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Nurse Executive Leadership (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "DNP - Nurse Leadership (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "DNP - Nurse Leadership (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "DNP - Nurse Leadership (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "DNP - Nurse Leadership (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "DNP - Nurse Midwifery (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "DNP - Nurse Midwifery (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Nurse Midwifery (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Nurse Midwifery (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - Nurse Midwifery (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Grad Cert - Nurse Midwifery (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "DNP - Nurse Midwifery (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "DNP - Nurse Midwifery (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Nursing BSN to MSN Programs (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Nursing BSN to MSN Programs (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Nursing BSN to PhD Programs (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Nursing BSN to PhD Programs (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "PhD in Nursing (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "PhD in Nursing (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Care Coordination (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Care Coordination (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - Care Coordination (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Grad Cert - Care Coordination (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Care Coordination (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Care Coordination (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Case Management (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Case Management (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Dual MSN/MBA (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Dual MSN/MBA (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - Nurse Education (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Grad Cert - Nurse Education (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "DNP - Nurse Education (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "DNP - Nurse Education (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Nursing Education (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Nursing Education (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Nurse Educator (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Nurse Educator (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Nurse Educator (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Nurse Educator (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Nursing Graduate Certificate Programs (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Nursing Graduate Certificate Programs (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - Nursing Informatics (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Grad Cert - Nursing Informatics (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "DNP - Nursing Informatics (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "DNP - Nursing Informatics (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Nursing Informatics (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Nursing Informatics (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - Nursing Leadership (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Grad Cert - Nursing Leadership (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Nursing MSN to DNP (Doctorate) Programs (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Nursing MSN to DNP (Doctorate) Programs (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "PhD in Nursing (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "PhD in Nursing (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Nursing MSN to PhD (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Nursing MSN to PhD (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Nursing RN (With Non-Nursing Associates) to MSN (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Nursing RN (With Non-Nursing Associates) to MSN (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Nursing RN (With Non-Nursing Bachelors) to MSN (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Nursing RN (With Non-Nursing Bachelors) to MSN (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Nursing RN to BSN to MSN (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Nursing RN to BSN to MSN (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Nursing RN to MSN (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Nursing RN to MSN (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Patient Safety & Quality (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Patient Safety & Quality (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "DNP - Pediatric Care Nurse Practitioner (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "DNP - Pediatric Care Nurse Practitioner (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Grad Cert - Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "DNP - Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "DNP - Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "DNP - Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "DNP - Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Grad Cert - Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "DNP - Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "DNP - Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "DNP - Women's Health Nurse Practitioner (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "DNP - Women's Health Nurse Practitioner (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Women's Health Nurse Practitioner (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Women's Health Nurse Practitioner (I Have a BSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - Women's Health Nurse Practitioner (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Grad Cert - Women's Health Nurse Practitioner (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "DNP - Women's Health Nurse Practitioner (I Have a MSN)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "DNP - Women's Health Nurse Practitioner (I Have a MSN)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Women's Health Nurse Practitioner (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSN - Women's Health Nurse Practitioner (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 19
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 16 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.8
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 16
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 0 offers with relevance >= 1.0
DEBUG: Backfilling with 0 offers with relevance >= 0.9
DEBUG: Backfilling with 16 offers with relevance >= 0.8
Choosing a Great Nursing Practice School for Your Doctor's Degree
The nursing practice doctor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality nursing practice program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To take this into account we consider a school's overall Best Colleges for a Doctor's Degree ranking which itself looks at a combination 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 many resources a school devotes to nursing practice students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of nursing practice 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 nursing practice related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for nursing practice students working on their doctor's degree.
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 Practice Doctor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region list to help you make the college decision.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "health-care-professions//nursing//nursing-practice"
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).