2025 Best Registered Nursing Doctor's Degree Schools

If you pursue a doctor's degree in registered nursing, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #25 most popular program in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.

For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 39 schools in the United States to determine which ones were the best for registered nursing students pursuing a doctor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 976 doctor's degrees in registered nursing during the <nil> academic year.

Jump to one of the following sections: * Our Methodology

• Best Doctor’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Registered Nursing School for Your Doctor's Degree

Your choice of registered nursing for getting your doctor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality registered nursing program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:

Quality Overall Is Important

The overall quality of a doctor's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Doctor's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.

Other Factors We Consider

In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:

• Major Focus - How much a school focuses on registered nursing students vs. other majors.
• Major Demand - How many other registered nursing students want to attend this school to pursue a doctor's degree.
• Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
• Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized registered nursing related body.

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

More Ways to Rank Registered 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 Registered Nursing Doctor's Degree Schools list to help you make the college decision.

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

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

10 Top Schools for a Doctorate in Registered Nursing

1

University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

33 Annual Graduates

It is hard to beat University of Pennsylvania if you want to pursue a doctor's degree in registered nursing. Located in the large city of Philadelphia, UPenn is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.More information about a doctorate in registered nursing from University of Pennsylvania

2

New York University
New York, NY

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

7 Annual Graduates

New York University is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a doctor's degree in registered nursing. Located in the city of New York, NYU is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.More information about a doctorate in registered nursing from New York University

3

Loma Linda University
Loma Linda, CA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

17 Annual Graduates

Loma Linda University is a wonderful decision for students pursuing a doctor's degree in registered nursing. Located in the suburb of Loma Linda, Loma Linda University is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.More information about a doctorate in registered nursing from Loma Linda University

4

Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

12 Annual Graduates

Johns Hopkins University is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a doctor's degree in registered nursing. Johns Hopkins is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Baltimore.More information about a doctorate in registered nursing from Johns Hopkins University

5

Georgetown University
Washington, DC

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

26 Annual Graduates

Located in the city of Washington, Georgetown is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.More information about a doctorate in registered nursing from Georgetown University

6

Villanova University
Villanova, PA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

10 Annual Graduates

Located in the suburb of Villanova, Villanova is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.More information about a doctorate in registered nursing from Villanova University

7

Northeastern University
Boston, MA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

11 Annual Graduates

Northeastern is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Boston.More information about a doctorate in registered nursing from Northeastern University

8

University of Washington - Seattle Campus
Seattle, WA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

106 Annual Graduates

Located in the large city of Seattle, UW Seattle is a public university with a very large student population.More information about a doctorate in registered nursing from University of Washington - Seattle Campus

9

Creighton University
Omaha, NE

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

3 Annual Graduates

Creighton is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the city of Omaha.More information about a doctorate in registered nursing from Creighton University

10

University at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

24 Annual Graduates

Located in the large suburb of Buffalo, University at Buffalo is a public university with a very large student population.More information about a doctorate in registered nursing from University at Buffalo

Registered Nursing by Region

View the Best Registered 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 >

Registered Nursing Related Rankings by Major

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

Most Popular Majors Related to Registered Nursing

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Nursing Practice	7,474
Nurse Anesthetist	1,403
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
Critical Care Nursing	55
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.