Best PhD in Nursing Programs in Florida, Ranked (2026)

Florida has three online nursing PhDs and UCF is the only one with federal research grants behind it, $2.7 million across nine NINR awards. It is also about $24,000 cheaper than Nova Southeastern.

Where it wins. Sixty-six credits at $369.65 comes to $24,397, and the college advertises more than $2 million in UCF fellowships plus pilot funding for dissertation research. Enrolling exclusively in online classes also cuts your campus-based fees.

What you give up. Online here still means traveling to Orlando: an in-person intensive every fall until you reach candidacy, plus a second one each spring. BSN entrants take 75 credits, and the college awarded 4 PhDs against 65 DNPs.

Barry runs its PhD on federal loan forgiveness rather than stipends, and it has been doing it long enough to matter: more than 300 graduates through the Nurse Faculty Loan Program across sixteen years.

Where it wins. NFLP pays up to $40,000 a year with 85 percent forgiven over four years of teaching. Barry awarded 11 PhDs, more than any other Florida program, and DNP holders finish in 30 credits against 50 for master's entrants.

What you give up. The money is a loan you teach off, and it ties you to four years of nursing faculty work after graduating. Entry is master's only, and the grant-funded research in Florida nursing sits at UF and UCF.

UF holds $10.9 million in NINR awards across 26 grants, more than three times what every other Florida nursing school holds combined, and adds a T32 training fellowship. Three years is also the fastest published finish in the state.

Where it wins. The college says all its PhD students receive some form of funding, mostly through graduate research assistantships attached to faculty grants. You can also take the degree with a concentration in clinical and translational science.

What you give up. Full-time only, with no part-time option at all, and you have to be in Gainesville weekly for research and classwork. Admission needs a 3.5 GPA, and how much funding you get depends on which faculty member has an assistantship open.

Core courses meet one Saturday and Sunday a month in Boca Raton, roughly four weekends a term. Nothing else in Florida is built that way, and the bill lands within about $40 of the cheapest program in the state.

Where it wins. Sixty credits at $371.81 comes to $22,309, against $22,266 for USF's master's-entry route. FAU awarded 10 PhDs, second only to Barry in Florida, and four named research areas run from healthy aging to health equity.

What you give up. The program is explicitly grounded in caring science, which shapes what a dissertation is allowed to look like. Not every course falls on the published weekend dates, admission needs a 3.5 GPA, and nine cognate credits are compulsory, six outside nursing.

At 49 credits Nova runs the shortest curriculum in Florida, and the only thing that pulls you to campus is a three-to-five-day summer institute once a year. You pay handsomely for that convenience.

Where it wins. Everything else is online, the fewest credits of any Florida program means the least coursework between you and a dissertation, and two courses carry research intensives worth 75 clock hours each, so the research starts early.

What you give up. At $993 a credit, 49 credits comes to $48,657, about twice what UCF charges for a comparable online PhD with an annual intensive. Admission is fall-entry only, closes August 14, and requires an interview with the program director.

Miami pays for the whole thing: tuition, a twelve-month stipend, a full tuition waiver and health insurance for up to five years. It is the one funded nursing PhD in Florida, and the funding outlasts the four-year program.

Where it wins. The support comes through a research or teaching assistantship, so you're paid to work on live studies. Six named research areas run from biopsychosocial determinants to implementation science, and the curriculum is built around health disparities and health equity.

What you give up. Ten semesters lock-step, meaning you must pass each semester's courses to move on, and there is no part-time option. Outside the funded track the sticker is $2,763 a credit, nearly eight times what USF charges.

USF has the lowest per-credit price in Florida at $347.91 and three separate ways in, so what you already hold decides the length: 52 credits with a DNP, 64 with a master's, 80 from a bachelor's.

Where it wins. The DNP route is $18,091 in tuition and finishes in two to three years. The college distributed $730,000 across 380 foundation scholarships in 2024-25, and a 13-credit nursing education certificate leads to CNE exam eligibility.

What you give up. Applications run to July 1 but the December 15 priority date is what actually gets you university funding, so the real deadline is months earlier than advertised. Classes are live on the Tampa campus, and USF awarded 1 PhD against 87 DNPs.

FIU is the only Florida program that hands you a clinical master's on the way through. The BSN-to-PhD track embeds a full MSN, with a nurse practitioner or nursing education specialty, before the doctorate.

Where it wins. You come out with both a clinical credential and a research doctorate in four and a half to five years. Post-master's entrants take a more ordinary 60 credits, 18 of them dissertation hours, through a three-stage candidacy, proposal and defense.

What you give up. That BSN route is 94 to 97 credits, roughly 20 more than UCF's post-BSN program and the heaviest load in Florida. Study is full-time, delivery is on the Miami campus, and the college awarded 2 PhDs against 81 DNPs.