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

What Nursing Faculty and Nurse Researchers Earn in Utah

Postsecondary nursing instructors in Utah earn a median of $82,320, running $2,070 above the national median of $80,250. Registered nurses in the state earn $84,600, so moving into teaching costs you about $2,280 against staff pay. That's a smaller sacrifice than the same move asks in most places, but the reason isn't generous faculty salaries. It's that Utah RN pay sits $12,950 under the national RN median of $97,550. The faculty range runs from $50,190 at the tenth percentile to $106,850 at the ninetieth, across roughly 580 jobs statewide, and that spread is where seniority and institution show up.

The full pay table by state puts these numbers beside every other state, and the career pages cover what else a nursing PhD opens up.

What Does the University of Utah Nursing PhD Ask of Applicants?

The program is a hybrid PhD in Nursing, which in practice means part of the work happens from home and part of it happens on campus in Salt Lake City. It runs about 69 credits, and it takes applicants straight from a BSN rather than requiring a master's first. Part-time enrollment is on the table, which matters if you're keeping clinical hours while you study.

It hasn't dropped the GRE. Utah's program isn't among the nursing PhDs that have gone test-optional, so build test prep into your application timeline instead of discovering it in the fall.

Six nursing doctorates come out of Utah in a typical year. That's a small number, and it tells you what the admissions committee is doing: taking a handful of people it can actually supervise. Write your statement of purpose to a specific faculty member's work rather than to the school, and read what that person has published recently, because at this size the match between your question and theirs is most of the decision.