Best Nursing Schools in Florida 2024

Nursing Degrees & Schools / Best Schools Florida

Florida is home to gators, beaches, Disney World, and a handful of excellent nursing schools to choose from. For nurses seeking to advance their careers or start in the field, Florida is an excellent state to live in.

Some of the more common degree types are: 

• Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN)
• Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) 
• Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN)
• Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) 
• Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

However, accelerated degree programs and bridge programs are offered to nursing students that can significantly reduce the amount of time spent in school.

Choosing a nursing program may feel stressful and confusing. To help, we’ve created a list of the best nursing programs in the state of Florida. 

---

---

In this post, we will explore the following: 

• Top nursing schools in Florida
• How to choose the right program
• Ranking methodology

To capture the best schools in each state, we applied a rigorous formula, isolating five variables that were weighted equally: 

• Graduation rate
• NCLEX pass rate
• CCNE accreditation
• Programs offered
• Tuition (based on in-state tuition, attending the maximum number of credits; mandatory fees not included.

Florida’s top nursing program:

1. Florida Gulf Coast University
2. University of South Florida
3. Florida International University
4. University of Tampa
5. The University of Miami

1. Florida Gulf Coast University – Score 86

NCLEX score: 100%

Tuition rate per year: $6,118

Florida Gulf Coast University is located in Fort Myers, Florida, and offers nursing students a great opportunity to learn and grow into the role of a nurse. The undergraduate nurses spend their time in clinicals gaining hands-on experience with patients. Graduate students have a chance to work in primary care settings and participate in internships. Additionally, the school has a high-fidelity and assessment lab for students. 

The school offers the following programs to nursing students:

• BSN
• MSN
• BSN to DNP
• MSN to DNP

2. University of South Florida – Score 85

NCLEX pass rate: 94.04%

Tuition rate per year: $6,410

The University of South Florida is located in Tampa, Florida, and is home to one of the most prestigious nursing programs in the nation. Its nursing program is ranked in the top 50 on the 2022 U.S. News & World Report Best Graduate Schools list. The nursing program itself has just over 1,400 students and 250 faculty members. This provides students with an intimate learning environment where they can develop the necessary skills to become a nurse. 

The school offers the following programs for nursing students:

• BSN
• MSN
• DNP
• PhD

3. Florida International University – Score 78

NCLEX score: 92.74%

Tuition per year: $6,168

Florida International University is located in Miami, Florida. Their program is the Nicole Wertheim College of Nursing & Health Sciences and prides itself on providing evidence-based practice and research. The school is accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education and strives to provide technology and simulation education to recreate real-world teaching scenarios. 

The school offers the following nursing programs for students:

• BSN
• MSN
• Post-MSN to DNP
• Post-BSN to DNP

4. University of Tampa – Score 76

NCLEX score: 100%

Tuition rate: $29,162

The University of Tampa is located in central Florida. In seven of the past eight years, University of Tampa students have received a 100% pass rate on the NCLEX-RN on the first try. It’s one of the few schools in Florida to achieve this. The program allows nursing students to get global, hands-on experience in places like the Dominican Republic and Ghana. 

The school offers the following nursing programs for students: 

• BSN
• MSN
• DNP

5.  The University of Miami – Score 73

NCLEX pass rate: 98.51%

Tuition rate: $53,112

The University of Miami is one of the most recognizable schools in the nation. This school offers one of the best nursing programs. The school provides a 41,000-square-foot Simulation Hospital Advancing Research and Education, which is a worldwide destination for simulated education, research, and life science technology and innovation.

The school offers the following nursing programs for students:

• BSN-DNP
• MSN to DNP
• Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing
• Family Nurse Practitioner

How to choose the right nursing program

Choosing the right nursing program may feel stressful. The good news is that we’ve provided several factors for you to consider to help make your decision easier. When choosing a school, some of the factors you should consider are location, tuition, NCLEX scores, and programs offered. 

Location

This is a major factor for a lot of nursing students when choosing a program to attend. Most nursing programs don’t have online components, so you must select a program that you can easily commute to. The worst thing would be to choose a program that becomes a burden to you simply because it’s too far from your house. Below is a map that shows where each school is located.

Tuition 

Let’s face it: paying for school can be a huge barrier for students. Also, many nurses end up incurring a massive amount of student debt from their years of education. Additionally, some nurses transition into the field after spending years in another specialty or having another degree from which they’ve already accumulated student debt. 

Finding a school that’s both affordable and reputable can seem challenging. Fortunately, you don’t have to jeopardize quality over price. Several of the schools we analyzed were both affordable and highly respected. 

NCLEX scores

One of the most critical measures of a nursing program’s credibility is its NCLEX pass rates. The NCLEX test is an examination that measures a potential registered nurse’s aptitude. A good NCLEX pass rate for a school is anything in the 90th percentile and above. 

Programs offered

The programs offered at the particular school you want to go to is critically important. You need to make sure that the school you are applying to has the program that you need. There are many different nursing programs offered at various schools. The principal baseline program offered at most universities is the BSN program. However, every person has different needs, and choosing the right program depends on the career track you are interested in. 

Graduation Rate 

The last factor that you should consider when choosing a nursing program is the graduation rate. A higher graduation rate indicates that the school graduates first-year students within 4-6 years at a greater rate than other schools. Knowing that your school has a proven track record of graduating students on time is crucial. 

---

---

---

Ranking methodology

We retrieved our data from the following locations: 

• University websites
• The state board of registered nursing if applicable (for example, Florida Board of Registered Nursing)
• The U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard  
• The American Association of Colleges of Nursing
• U.S. News Best Colleges 

To calculate the scores for the respective schools, we took the lowest-scoring school from each individual metric, assigned it a 1, and gave the highest score a 10. We then were able to create brackets within that range to place each college in. 

After coming up with a score for each school out of ten for their respective metric, we added them up and multiplied them by two to come up with a score out of 100.