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.
College Factual looked at 3 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Nursing Doctor's Degree Schools in North Dakota ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 68 doctor's degrees in nursing during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
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.
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
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 full 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.
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 North Dakota list, to help you choose the best school for you.
Best Schools for Doctorate Students to Study Nursing in North Dakota
Explore the top ranked colleges and universities for nursing students seeking a a doctor's degree.
Top North Dakota Schools for a Doctorate in Nursing
Any student who is interested in a doctor's degree in nursing has to look into University of Mary. Located in the rural area of Bismarck, UMary is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
Nursing doctor's degree recipients from University of Mary earn a boost of about $5,861 over the typical income of nursing majors.
It's difficult to beat North Dakota State University - Main Campus if you wish to pursue a doctor's degree in nursing. North Dakota State University is a large public university located in the midsize city of Fargo.
Doctorate graduates who receive their degree from the nursing program earn around $106,849 in the first couple years of working.
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).