Ranked #5 in popularity, nursing is one of the most sought-after doctor's degree programs in the nation. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
In 2024, College Factual analyzed 3 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Nursing Doctor's Degree Schools in District of Columbia ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 52 doctor's degrees in nursing during the 2020-2021 academic year.
Choosing a Great Nursing School for Your Doctor's Degree
The nursing doctor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To account for this 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.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their doctor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. That is, everyone wants their doctor'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 doctor'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 doctor'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 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 Doctor's Degree Schools in District of Columbia list to help you make the college decision.
Best Schools for Doctorate Students to Study Nursing in District of Columbia
Learn about the top ranked colleges and universities for nursing students seeking a a doctor's degree.
Top District of Columbia Schools for a Doctorate in Nursing
Every student pursuing a degree in a doctor's degree in nursing has to look into Georgetown University. Georgetown is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Washington.
Students who graduate with their doctorate from the nursing program report average early career earnings of $114,211.
George Washington University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a doctor's degree in nursing. Located in the city of Washington, GWU is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Doctorate recipients from the nursing degree program at George Washington University get $5,015 above the typical college graduate with the same degree 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).