25 Top Value Affordable Online Bachelor’s Degrees in Registered Nursing 2017

With the ongoing shortage of nurses in the United States and an IOM (Institute of Medicine) initiative to increase the percentage of American RNs (Registered Nurses) holding a BSN (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) degree, nursing schools are offering a variety of academic paths to accommodate this goal. (At the start of the initiative in 2010, only 40% of RNs held a BSN, with the goal being 80% by 2020.)

One such academic option is the RN to BSN track that many nursing schools offer. This type of degree program is designed for working nurses with Registered Nurse licensure and who have either a diploma or associate’s degree in nursing (ADN/ ASN).

Students in this category who are seeking to complete a BSN are accommodated in a number of possible ways that allow them to keep working at least part-time, if not full-time, while studying. This includes part-time study options, online courses with minimal on-campus presence, online resources and advising, practicums local to each student, etc.

In addition to the IOM initiative, there are many other reasons for Registered Nurses to complete a bachelor of nursing degree. Because of the added skills and knowledge, BSN-prepared RNs qualify for advanced practice and other nursing roles that may include advocacy, education, informatics, leadership and more. As a result, they can potentially earn more than double of that of some of their counterparts who are only ADN-prepared.

At the time of this writing, the NCES listed 360 colleges and universities as having a bachelor’s level nursing degree or degree completion program offered through distance and/or online delivery. Our list combines various cost values and other institutional factors to come up with 25 “top value” colleges. The majority of programs listed here are for “completion,” consisting of upper-division courses that take 3-5 semesters (roughly 1-2 years). Ranking methodology is provided at the end of this article.

 

College Ranking Dashboard Information

Each entry for the 25 colleges ranked below provides a summary of online bachelor’s of nursing degrees. A data dashboard supplements each college review entry, and contains charts and data points. The latter either come from NCES (http://nces.ed.gov/) data or are calculated from NCES data. The legend below explains the data points and is followed by the list of 25 ranked colleges. The ranking methodology is at the end of this article.

• Type: public or private, nonprofit institution.
• Location: location of campus, or headquarters for all-distance colleges.
• In-state tuition + fees: listed average undergrad tuition plus mandatory fees for in-state students.
• Out-of-state tuition +fees: listed average undergrad tuition plus mandatory fees for out-of-state students.
• Net price: the yearly average total cost for all students (tuition, fees, books, etc.)
• %fulltime retention: % of full-time 1st-year undergrads who return.
• %allDistEdu: % of undergrads who are taking all distance education courses, online delivery or otherwise.
• %someDistEdu: % of undergrads who are taking some distance education courses, online or otherwise.
• # students: total number of students at all study levels, on-campus and online.
• # undergrads: total number of undergraduate students.
• # grads: total number of graduate students.
• Graduation rate: % of undergrads who eventually graduate, based on first-time, full-time undergrads. Might be zero, if the college has no such students in a given year.
• Affiliation/ governance: religious affiliation, system affiliation, or external board of regents.
• Institutional accreditation: : accrediting body for the college.
• Program accreditation: accrediting body for the degree program or parent department, if applicable.

 

 

Rankings: Top Value Affordable Online Bachelor’s Degrees in Registered Nursing

Ranking Methodology

This ranking system combines affordability (60%) with a number of institutional “value” metrics (total of 40%) that together give an overall sense of a college’s reputation (or potential) with undergrad students, based on available statistics. These factors are consistently applied against all colleges listed in the NCES database (http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/) as having a bachelor’s program in “Registered Nursing” categories. E.g., the “candidate cohort.” As such, some colleges listed here may have already been listed in our various other bachelor’s of nursing rankings.

The affordability metrics are calculated using a relative scale based on the cost values for all the initial candidate colleges. E.g., based on the minimum and maximum values for each cost metric across the candidate cohort. Where any given college’s value for that cost metric falls in the overall range determines the score in that metric for that college. For example, assume a topic of accounting, for illustration purposes, and that there are about 300 colleges listed in NCES as offering a bachelor’s program in accounting. If the in-state tuition values for all 300 colleges range from $1,200 per year to $60,000 per year, points are awarded to each college based on where their in-state tuition falls in that range. The lower the relative cost value, the more points a college is awarded. This approach is applied to all three cost metrics.

Non-price metrics, on the other hand, are typically already a percentage from 0-100. So their scores are determined by applying a multiple. So if Retention (see below) is worth 10% of the overall score, each college’s full-time undergrad retention score is multiplied by 0.10, to get the value of this ranking factor’s score.

Missing values are handled differently based on what they represent. Incomplete info for a college is not penalized in most cases. However, an unreported graduation rate means a college is filtered out. Otherwise, that ranking factor is set to zero, giving colleges a chance to get ranked if enough other, more important, factors support it.

Ranking Factors

The ranking factors used in this article, in approximately declining order of weight, are as follows:

• In-state tuition — Covers relative affordability for the bulk of students.
• Out-of-state tuition — Covers relative affordability for non-resident students taking one of these online programs.
• GradRate — Score based on percentage of first-time, full-time undergrads who graduate their program. Colleges without such students may have a zero score here. However, if other ranking factors support it, the college may still appear in the 25 ranked colleges on that basis.
• Net price — Covers relative affordability for all undergrads based on average yearly net prices
• Retention — Covers the percentage of full-time undergrads continuing in degree programs after freshman year.
• OnlyDE — Score based on percentage of undergrads taking all Distance Education courses (including online) for their degree program.
• SomeDE — Score based on percentage of undergrads taking some DistEd courses for their degree program.

Note that ranking factors and their weighting may vary slightly from article to article in the “Top Value Affordable” series.