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.
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 collection of various 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 full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for nursing students working on their bachelor'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 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
Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in nursing needs to check out University of Virginia - Main Campus. University of Virginia is a fairly large public university located in the medium-sized suburb of Charlottesville.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the nursing program state that they receive average early career income of $75,220.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in nursing needs to check out Virginia Commonwealth University. VCU is a fairly large public university located in the midsize city of Richmond.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the nursing program report average early career wages of $71,847.
James Madison University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in nursing. Located in the small 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 make about $76,490 in their early career salary.
Marymount University is a great decision for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in nursing. Marymount is a small private not-for-profit university located in the medium-sized city of Arlington.
Those nursing students who get their bachelor's degree from Marymount University make $5,173 more than the average nursing student.
Located in the 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 earn $3,448 above the average college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
Located in the large city of Virginia Beach, ECPI University is a private for-profit university with a large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the nursing degree program at ECPI University make $2,633 more than the standard college graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
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).
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:
