2025 Best Nursing Bachelor's Degree Schools in Alabama

Ranked #2 in popularity, nursing is one of the most sought-after bachelor's degree programs in the nation. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.

For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 14 schools in Alabama to determine which ones were the best for nursing students pursuing a bachelor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 2,335 bachelor's degrees in nursing during the 2022-2023 academic year.

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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.

A Great Overall School

The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we include a school's overall Best Colleges 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.

Early-Career Earnings

One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of bachelor's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their bachelor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.

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 full 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

The 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 Nursing Bachelor's Degree Schools in Alabama.

In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat. Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.

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

Learn about the top ranked colleges and universities for nursing students seeking a a bachelor's degree.

10 Top Alabama Schools for a Bachelor's in Nursing

1

Samford University
Birmingham, AL

105 Annual Graduates

$64,226 Median Starting Salary

$66,395 Median Student Debt

Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in nursing needs to check out Samford University. Samford is a medium-sized private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of Birmingham.

Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the nursing program report average early career wages of $64,226.

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

2

University of Alabama at Birmingham
Birmingham, AL

363 Annual Graduates

$65,173 Median Starting Salary

$34,249 Median Student Debt

Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in nursing has to look into University of Alabama at Birmingham. UAB is a very large public university located in the midsize city of Birmingham.

After graduation, nursing bachelor's recipients usually earn an average of $65,173 at the beginning of their careers.

More information about a bachelor’s in nursing from University of Alabama at Birmingham

3

The University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, AL

374 Annual Graduates

$73,000 Median Starting Salary

$67,648 Median Student Debt

It's hard to beat The University of Alabama if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in nursing. Located in the midsize city of Tuscaloosa, UA is a public university with a fairly large student population.

Bachelor's recipients from the nursing major at The University of Alabama get $4,475 more than the typical college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.

More information about a bachelor’s in nursing from The University of Alabama

4

Auburn University
Auburn, AL

222 Annual Graduates

$67,120 Median Starting Salary

$33,691 Median Student Debt

Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in nursing needs to look into Auburn University. Located in the city of Auburn, Auburn is a public university with a fairly large student population.

Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the nursing program report average early career income of $67,120.

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

5

University of South Alabama
Mobile, AL

347 Annual Graduates

$69,447 Median Starting Salary

$25,814 Median Student Debt

Located in the city of Mobile, USA is a public university with a large student population.

Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the nursing program earn around $69,447 in their early career salary.

More information about a bachelor’s in nursing from University of South Alabama

6

Jacksonville State University
Jacksonville, AL

240 Annual Graduates

$68,896 Median Starting Salary

$15,223 Median Student Debt

Jacksonville State University is a medium-sized public university located in the suburb of Jacksonville.

Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the nursing program state that they receive average early career earnings of $68,896.

More information about a bachelor’s in nursing from Jacksonville State University

7

University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL

176 Annual Graduates

$63,036 Median Starting Salary

$26,491 Median Student Debt

UAH is a medium-sized public university located in the city of Huntsville.

Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the nursing program earn about $63,036 in the first couple years of their career.

More information about a bachelor’s in nursing from University of Alabama in Huntsville

8

Troy University
Troy, AL

145 Annual Graduates

$66,344 Median Starting Salary

$16,000 Median Student Debt

Located in the remote town of Troy, TROY is a public university with a fairly large student population.

Soon after graduating, nursing bachelor's recipients typically earn around $66,344 in the first five years of their career.

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

9

University of North Alabama
Florence, AL

154 Annual Graduates

$61,137 Median Starting Salary

Located in the small city of Florence, UNA is a public university with a fairly large student population.

Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the nursing program state that they receive average early career income of $61,137.

More information about a bachelor’s in nursing from University of North Alabama

10

Tuskegee University
Tuskegee, AL

40 Annual Graduates

$78,874 Median Starting Salary

$35,026 Median Student Debt

Tuskegee is a small private not-for-profit university located in the town of Tuskegee.

Those nursing students who get their bachelor's degree from Tuskegee University earn $10,349 more than the standard nursing graduate.

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

Best Nursing Colleges in the Southeast Region

Explore all the Best Nursing Schools 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
Virginia	213	3,096
South Carolina	195	1,605
Kentucky	187	2,530
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	2,335

Majors Similar to Nursing

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Health & Medical Administrative Services	291
Public Health	275
Communication Sciences	240
Health Sciences & Services	228
Allied Health Professions	184
Health/Medical Prep Programs	141
Mental & Social Health Services	93
Pharmacy/Pharmaceutical Sciences	66
Rehabilitation & Therapeutic Professions	56
Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science	54

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.