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Best Nursing Schools
The top 25 of 875 U.S. colleges offering an undergraduate Nursing degree, ranked by early-career earnings and return on investment — using each school's real, aid-adjusted net price rather than sticker tuition.
Is Nursing worth it?
Few bachelor's degrees offer a more guaranteed ticket to the middle class—and often the upper-middle class—than a BSN. But the financial payoff heavily depends on geography and where you choose to study. The data here is screamingly clear: the greatest value in nursing education is found at accessible, low-cost public universities in states with powerful nurses' unions and high regional wages. Paying a premium for a prestige-brand nursing degree is almost always a financial mistake when local state schools feed directly into the exact same hospitals, on the exact same pay scales, for a fraction of the tuition.
| # | School | State | Median earnings | Net price / yr | 10-yr net ROI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sonoma State University | CA | $125,646 | $12,885† | +$1.2M |
| 2 | California State University-East Bay | CA | $124,392 | $9,320† | +$1.2M |
| 3 | California State University-Stanislaus | CA | $119,356 | $6,067† | +$1.2M |
| 4 | San Francisco State University | CA | $117,532 | $12,278† | +$1.1M |
| 5 | California State University-Monterey Bay | CA | $117,088 | $13,663† | +$1.1M |
| 6 | California State University-Sacramento | CA | $116,001 | $9,338† | +$1.1M |
| 7 | CUNY Medgar Evers College | NY | $115,779 | $5,718† | +$1.1M |
| 8 | CUNY York College | NY | $113,718 | $4,456† | +$1.1M |
| 9 | California State University-Dominguez Hills | CA | $110,626 | $8,615† | +$1.1M |
| 10 | College of Staten Island CUNY | NY | $110,335 | $5,579† | +$1.1M |
| 11 | California State University-Northridge | CA | $106,780 | $7,021† | +$1.0M |
| 12 | CUNY Hunter College | NY | $103,692 | $2,984† | +$1.0M |
| 13 | CUNY New York City College of Technology | NY | $103,611 | $5,127† | +$1.0M |
| 14 | Farmingdale State College | NY | $103,508 | $10,867† | +$992K |
| 15 | California State University-Channel Islands | CA | $103,484 | $9,849† | +$995K |
| 16 | California State University-Fullerton | CA | $103,028 | $6,555† | +$1.0M |
| 17 | CUNY Lehman College | NY | $101,531 | $3,148† | +$1.0M |
| 18 | California State University-Long Beach | CA | $100,178 | $10,440† | +$960K |
| 19 | California State University-Los Angeles | CA | $98,811 | $3,967† | +$972K |
| 20 | California State University-Fresno | CA | $96,890 | $7,000† | +$941K |
| 21 | University of California-Los Angeles | CA | $94,611 | $12,548† | +$896K |
| 22 | California State University-San Bernardino | CA | $93,142 | $4,564† | +$913K |
| 23 | California State University-Chico | CA | $113,181 | $14,480† | +$1.1M |
| 24 | California State University-San Marcos | CA | $103,799 | $10,229† | +$997K |
| 25 | University of Providence | MT | $101,187 | $17,649 | +$941K |
Top 10 programs by 10-year net ROI
Other ways to rank Nursing: Most Affordable · Easiest to Get Into
Why these schools rank where they do
Sonoma State University takes the #1 spot because of a perfect geographic and economic storm. Sitting just north of San Francisco, it gives its graduates direct access to the highest-paying nursing market on the planet. Northern California hospitals—dominated by massive, well-funded systems like Kaiser Permanente and Sutter Health—hire California State University graduates in droves, placing them on heavily unionized, fiercely negotiated pay scales that eclipse national averages.
The broader trend defining this ranking is the absolute dominance of the California State University (CSU) and City University of New York (CUNY) systems. Notice who gets beaten: UCLA sits down at #21, trailing far less famous schools like CSU Stanislaus and CUNY Medgar Evers. This isn't because UCLA provides a worse clinical education; it’s because nursing is an incredibly egalitarian hiring market. A hiring manager at Cedars-Sinai or Mount Sinai doesn't care about your university's prestige. They care that you passed the NCLEX and had solid clinical rotations. The CSUs and CUNYs offer rock-bottom tuition and pump graduates straight into the most lucrative, union-protected healthcare markets in the country, rendering expensive flagship degrees financially inefficient by comparison.
Even the lone geographic outlier proves the rule of direct employment pipelines. The University of Providence in Montana lands at #25 because it shares a name and a deep historical affiliation with the massive Providence health system. Its nursing programs are structurally tied to the workforce needs of Providence hospitals across the West, giving graduates an inside track to immediate employment.
What is Nursing?
Nursing is the clinical and operational backbone of the healthcare system, a physically and emotionally demanding profession focused on direct patient care, medical administration, and health advocacy.
Frequently asked questions
Does it matter if I get a BSN or an Associate Degree (ADN)?
Yes. While an Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) allows you to sit for your RN license, many top-tier hospitals—especially Magnet-designated facilities—now require a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) for entry-level hires, or require you to earn one shortly after being hired. A BSN also opens doors to leadership, public health, and advanced practice roles later in your career.
Do hospitals care about my college's ranking or prestige?
Almost never. Healthcare employers care about two things: your RN license and your clinical competence. A degree from an elite private university will not get you a higher starting salary than a degree from a regional state college if you are both hired into the same hospital unit. Nursing pay is overwhelmingly determined by experience, shift differentials, and union contracts, not alma mater.
Why are only California and New York schools at the top of this list?
Geography dictates nursing pay. California and New York have high costs of living, but more importantly, they have exceptionally strong nurses' unions that have negotiated strict patient-to-nurse ratios and high compensation floors. When you combine those premium regional salaries with the heavily subsidized tuition of the CSU and CUNY systems, the return on investment mathematically shuts out schools from states with lower healthcare wages.