2025 Best Nursing Doctor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region
Nursing is of the hottest doctor's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #5 most popular major in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 23 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Nursing Doctor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 1,594 doctor's degrees in nursing to qualified students.
Jump to one of the following sections: * Our Methodology
Choosing a Great Nursing School for Your Doctor's Degree
Your choice of nursing for getting your doctor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality nursing program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
The overall quality of a doctor's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Doctor's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of doctorate graduates during the early years of their career. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their doctor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
- Major Focus - How much a school focuses on nursing students vs. other majors.
- Major Demand - The number of nursing students who choose to seek a doctor's degree at the school.
- Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
- Student Debt - How easy is it for nursing to pay back their student loans after receiving their doctor's degree.
- 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.
One Size Does Not Fit All
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Nursing Doctor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.
