Original data
Nursing school costs $4,500 a year, or $32,700. Same license.
Median published tuition across 4,277 US nursing programs in the IPEDS 2023 release. Public schools sit at $4,501, for-profits at $15,732 (3.5×), private nonprofits at $32,710 (7.3×). The license at the end is the same.
By NursingFloor staff. Last updated June 14, 2026. Data from IPEDS 2023 (US Department of Education).
The headline finding
An ADN and a BSN sit for the identical NCLEX-RN and earn the same RN license, yet the published tuition to get there ranges from about $4,501 a year at a public program to $32,710 at a private nonprofit. The school's price tag does not change the license.
The 3.5×/7× gap, in one chart.
For-profit programs run about 3.5× the public median. Private nonprofits run about 7.3× the public median.
Cheapest and priciest states.
Median program tuition in the IPEDS 2023 release, restricted to states with at least 5 nursing programs so the median isn't noisy.
Cheapest by median tuition
- California$1,472· 296 programs
- New Mexico$1,872· 35 programs
- North Carolina$2,432· 162 programs
- Arizona$2,532· 64 programs
- Wyoming$3,150· 14 programs
- Mississippi$3,650· 50 programs
Priciest by median tuition
- Washington, DC$59,569· 14 programs
- Pennsylvania$26,049· 223 programs
- Connecticut$19,988· 41 programs
- Alaska$18,075· 5 programs
- Vermont$16,280· 7 programs
- Massachusetts$15,850· 100 programs
California's low median reflects its community-college ADN system: low tuition, well-known long waitlists. Cheapest is not the same as fastest or easiest.
The credential mix, behind the cost.
4,277 programs across 58 states and territories. Approximately 326,660 nursing-program completions per year.
BSN
1,154
ADN
1,081
LPN / LVN
941
Direct-entry MSN
627
Diploma
381
ABSN (accelerated)
93
What this means for you.
Paying 3.5–7.3× more buys the same license, not a better outcome. Before you sign anything at a high-priced program, verify two things with your state Board of Nursing: programmatic accreditation (ACEN or CCNE) and the most recent first-time NCLEX pass rate. If either is missing or the rate is below the state average, that's a real red flag regardless of brand or marketing.
The cheapest path on paper, the public community-college ADN, is often the slowest in practice because of admission waitlists. The Path Finder accounts for both: tuition and the from-today timeline (including waitlist and lost wages). Use it before you decide.
How we computed these numbers.
Every number on this page comes from IPEDS 2023 (HD2023 + IC2023_AY + C2023_A), retrieved on 2026-06-14. Programs are filtered to CIP 51.38xx (registered nursing family) and 51.39xx (LPN/LVN). All numbers are computed at build time from the per-state shards under data/programs/.
- Tuition = IPEDS IC2023 published tuition + fees, the median across programs in each group. It is sticker price, not net price after aid, and not total cost of attendance (no books, living, or lost wages). The Path Finder handles full cost; this report is tuition only.
- Public medians lean to in-state / in-district rates; out-of-state is higher.
- "Cheapest" is not "fastest" or "easiest." Low tuition often pairs with long waitlists (especially California).
- Counts include both RN and LPN / LVN programs.
- Every state in the cheapest / priciest tables has at least 5 programs so the median doesn't reflect a single outlier.
- Where a program's tuition row is missing or zero in IPEDS, we omit it from the median rather than substitute a zero.
Download the data
Per-state medians, lowest, and highest tuition for every state in the dataset.
cost-of-nursing-school.csvOriginal data · NursingFloor
Now use it: find a program where the math works for you.
The Program Finder filters every IPEDS program by state, type, control, accreditation, NCLEX pass rate, and cost. Or run the Path Finder for a ranked answer that includes timeline and lost wages.