Nurse Practitioner and Advanced Practice Nurse

51.38 Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing · SOC 29-1171

⚠⚠⚠ Florida grants nurse practitioners autonomous practice — and almost every account of it omits the limit that matters. Autonomous registration covers PRIMARY CARE ONLY. It does not let you practise your specialty without a physician protocol, and only certified midwives are excepted. 11,201 APRNs were registered for autonomous practice as of the 2024 legislative analysis. ⚠⚠ The occupation itself is nearly twice the size of the physician assistant profession — 320,400 employed, 29,500 openings a year, $132,300 median.

Licensure and accreditation

⚠⚠⚠ READ THE SCOPE LIMIT BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE. Section 464.0123, F.S. lets an APRN register for autonomous practice with an unencumbered licence, no discipline in five years, 3,000 clinical practice hours within five years under physician supervision, 3 graduate semester hours each in differential diagnosis and pharmacology, and liability coverage of at least $100,000 per claim. ⚠⚠ But the statute permits autonomous practice ONLY IN PRIMARY CARE — family medicine, general paediatrics and general internal medicine — with no surgical procedures except subcutaneous ones. ⚠⚠⚠ The Florida House staff analysis of HB 771 states it plainly: all APRN specialties are eligible for autonomous practice, HOWEVER only certified midwives are currently authorised to practise any specific functions related to their SPECIALTY area without an established physician protocol. So a psychiatric nurse practitioner who registers as autonomous may run a family practice independently and still needs a protocol to practise psychiatry. ⚠ HB 771 (2024) would have changed that for psychiatric nurses; it DIED in the Healthcare Regulation Subcommittee on 8 March 2024, and the 2025 statute still reads primary care only. ⚠⚠ THE DEGREE: there is no Florida statute requiring a doctorate. NONPF committed in 2018 to move entry-level NP education to the DNP by 2025 and reaffirmed it in 2023, but NONPF is an association of faculties, its commitment carries no regulatory force, and both AANP and ANCC still certify master's-prepared NPs. Only a state board of nursing can set the degree for licensure.

⚠⚠⚠ Autonomous practice is primary care only, and that is the whole story

Florida has granted nurse practitioners autonomous practice since 2020, and it is real: 11,201 APRNs were registered for it when the legislature last counted in a 2024 staff analysis. The limit that gets left out of almost every summary is what it covers.

What autonomous registration gives you	What it does not
✅ independent practice in primary care — family medicine, general paediatrics, general internal medicine	⚠⚠ your specialty — a physician protocol is still required for specialty functions
✅ admitting, managing and discharging patients at health care facilities	⚠ surgery, beyond subcutaneous procedures
✅ physicians' certifications and signatures, with a statutory exception	—

The Florida House staff analysis puts it in one sentence: “All APRN specialties are eligible for autonomous practice, however, only certified midwives are currently authorized to practice any specific functions related to their specialty area without an established physician protocol when registered for autonomous practice.”

⚠⚠⚠ So a psychiatric nurse practitioner who registers as autonomous can independently run a family practice and still needs a protocol to do psychiatry. The same analysis counted 3,458 psychiatric nurses in Florida, of whom 1,093 held primary-care autonomous registration — people holding an independence that does not reach the work they actually do.

⚠ HB 771 (2024) would have fixed exactly that. It died in the Healthcare Regulation Subcommittee on 8 March 2024, and the 2025 statute still reads primary care only. If you read elsewhere that Florida psychiatric NPs practise independently, check the statute rather than the article.

The three advanced practice roles

Role	SOC	2025 median	Employed	Openings/yr	FL public programmes
Nurse practitioner	29-1171	$132,300	320,400	✅ 29,500	8 award the DNP
⚠⚠ Nurse anesthetist	29-1151	⚠⚠⚠ $236,590	53,800	⚠ 2,700	⚠ 3, awarding 55 a year
Nurse midwife	29-1161	$134,040	⚠ 8,600	⚠ 500	—

⚠⚠⚠ Nurse anesthesia is the best-paid nursing role in the United States — $104,290 above the nurse practitioner median — and it has 2,700 openings a year nationally against the NP's 29,500, with three Florida public programmes producing 55 graduates. Pay and access run in opposite directions, exactly as they do in nuclear medicine.

⚠ Nurse midwifery is smaller still at 8,600 jobs and about 500 openings — but note it is the one specialty the autonomy statute actually unlocks.

⚠⚠ Against the physician assistant, on the statutes

	Nurse practitioner	Physician assistant
Median	$132,300	$135,880
Employed	✅ 320,400	162,700
Openings a year	✅ 29,500	12,000
Independence	✅ autonomous in primary care (s. 464.0123)	⚠ supervised (s. 458.347)
Scope	⚠ primary care for autonomy; specialty needs a protocol	✅ every specialty, including surgery
Employer constraint	none once registered	⚠ a physician may supervise at most 10
Degree in law	⚠ no statutory requirement	master's required by statute, matriculation after 31 Dec 2020
Getting in	RN licence first, then graduate school	⚠ ~3,200 hours of patient contact before applying

⚠⚠ The pay is within $3,580 and the structure is completely different. Nurse practitioner is nearly twice the profession by headcount and 2.5 times by annual openings; the PA route buys scope and gives up independence; the NP route buys independence in one setting and gives up the rest of medicine.

⚠ And the way in differs more than the way out. A PA applicant accumulates clinical hours in any job that qualifies. An NP applicant becomes a registered nurse first and gets the hours by being one — which is a longer road but a paid, licensed and self-contained one, and if you stop halfway you are still a nurse.

⚠⚠ The degree is drifting doctoral; the law is not

Florida awarded 532 professional doctorates in nursing practice in 2023, against 522 master's in general nursing. NONPF's own trend data: DNP NP programmes 124 in 2014 to 254 in 2021; BSN-to-DNP graduates 934 in 2015 to 3,327 in 2021; entry to MSN NP programmes has levelled.

⚠⚠⚠ But NONPF is an association of faculties, and its 2025 commitment has no regulatory force. AANP and ANCC both still certify master's-prepared nurse practitioners, and only a state board of nursing can set the degree for licensure. Florida has not set one.

⚠ What to do with that: a master's still qualifies you, and the DNP is increasingly what programmes offer rather than what the law demands. Choose on the programme in front of you, not on a deadline that is not binding — and contrast it with the physician assistant route, where the master's requirement IS in Florida statute with a date.

⚠ A very wide base and a very narrow top

Rung	FL public institutions	Credentials (2023)
Registered nursing	✅ 39	10,372 — 5,037 associate, 4,774 bachelor's
Doctor of Nursing Practice	⚠ 8	538
⚠ Nurse anesthesia	⚠⚠ 3	⚠⚠ 55

⚠⚠ Roughly nineteen registered nursing credentials for every advanced practice one. The entry to nursing is among the most available things Florida teaches; the advanced rungs are among the least. Plan the graduate step deliberately and early, because you will probably have to move for it.

Necessary skills

Differential diagnosis — the skill nursing school does not teach and graduate school compresses into two courses, one of which Florida names in the autonomy statute.
Pharmacology at prescribing depth, likewise named in s. 464.0123.
Knowing the edge of your scope, which on this path is a legal boundary and not only a clinical one.
Practice management, if autonomy is the goal — billing, coding, liability coverage, contracting. Independence means running a business.
Years of registered nursing judgement. The statute wants 3,000 supervised hours for autonomy; the job wants considerably more.
Tolerance for an unsettled legal environment. Scope of practice is relitigated every session, and what you may do can change between one year and the next.

Advice

⚠⚠⚠ If you want to practise your specialty independently in Florida, read s. 464.0123 first. Autonomy is primary care. Psychiatry, acute care, oncology and the rest still need a protocol, and the 2024 bill that would have changed that for psychiatry died in subcommittee.

⚠⚠ Do not choose NP over PA on salary. They are within $3,580. Choose on whether you want independence in primary care or scope across all of medicine, because that is the actual difference and it is written into two statutes.

⚠ Get the RN and work. The 3,000 supervised hours the autonomy statute wants are hours you will accumulate anyway, and unlike the PA route you are licensed and paid the whole time. ⚠ If you stop after the BSN you still have a career.

⚠ Look hard at nurse anesthesia before dismissing it. $236,590 is not a rounding error. But three Florida public programmes, 55 graduates and 2,700 national openings a year mean you should expect to move and to compete.

And treat the DNP as a programme choice, not a deadline. The trend is real; the requirement is not, and nobody will refuse to certify you for holding a master's.

Programs that lead here

A program is a field of study, one level above a degree — each page says which degrees it covers and which Florida institutions award them. ⚠ The count is institutions that awarded a credential in the field in 2023; it is not a promise that a school runs this exact degree, and it counts something different from the course-based list further down.

Advanced Practice Nursing 9 Florida schools

The graduate step — 9 Florida public institutions. 8 award the DNP (UF 114, UNF 86, USF 83, FIU 81, UCF 69), 3 award nurse anesthesia at 55 credentials a year, and 2 award a named family nurse practitioner master's. ⚠ Read its degrees note on why the DNP is a trend rather than a requirement.

Nursing 78 Florida schools

⚠⚠⚠ Always first, and the contrast in scale is the planning fact: 39 Florida public institutions award registered nursing degrees and produced 10,372 credentials in one year, against 538 at the doctoral level. ⚠ The RN years are also where the autonomy statute's 3,000 supervised clinical hours come from, so they are not a delay — they are the requirement.

Physician Assistant Studies 6 Florida schools

⚠⚠ The alternative, decided on the statutes rather than the salary — the two medians are within $3,580. An APRN can practise autonomously in primary care; a PA cannot practise unsupervised at all, and a physician may supervise at most ten. ⚠ But a PA's scope reaches surgery and every specialty, and autonomous APRN practice reaches primary care only.

Related, but not a route in

Programs worth knowing about if you are considering this career — ⚠ they do not lead to it. Each row says what it is and is not.

Public Health 14 Florida schools

⚠ A common second credential rather than a route in, and the combination is unusually strong: a public health bachelor's alone is thin, and an MPH over a nursing licence is not. ⚠⚠ Population health, epidemiology and programme roles in county health departments are where the two meet.

Health Care Administration 24 Florida schools

⚠ The other graduate direction, and the more reachable one part-time: 24 Florida institutions with 20 state colleges carrying the upper-division coursework, against 9 for advanced practice nursing. ⚠⚠ Nurse executives sit in the medical and health services manager occupation at a $123,860 median — a real alternative for a nurse who wants off shift work without a clinical doctorate.

Careers similar to this one

Careers filed under the same broad field in the federal classification (HEALTH PROFESSIONS AND RELATED PROGRAMS) — often they share early coursework, and each row says which group it is filed in. ⚠ Worth reading BEFORE you commit: switching between neighbours is cheap early and expensive late.

Athletic Trainer Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, and Treatment Professions

⚠⚠⚠ A master's-entry, state-licensed clinical profession paying $62,520 — less than a licensed practical nurse earns on a certificate ($64,400), and less than every associate-degree clinical route on this site except paramedic. ⚠⚠ The profession moved to master's entry in 2022: CAATE states that after the fall 2022 term, baccalaureate degree programmes will no longer enrol students. ⚠ Florida's statute has not caught up and still reads as though a bachelor's is enough.

Dental Hygienist Dental Support Services and Allied Professions

Dental hygienists are licensed clinicians who assess and treat the gums, remove calculus and stains, take and read radiographs, apply preventive agents, and teach patients to look after their own teeth. ⚠ A median of $98,100 on a two-year associate degree — the highest of any two-year route on this site. ⚠⚠ Florida licenses the work under Chapter 466 and requires THREE separate examinations on top of the degree. ⚠⚠⚠ Admission is the hard part, not the coursework: 18 public programmes in the whole state, all limited-access.

Diagnostic Medical Sonographer Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, and Treatment Professions

Sonographers produce and interpret the ultrasound images physicians diagnose from — deciding in real time which views answer the clinical question, and recognising the difference between healthy and pathological tissue on a screen nobody else is watching. ⚠ A median of $96,590 on a two-year degree, second only to dental hygiene among the two-year routes on this site. ⚠⚠⚠ And a regulatory fact worth knowing before you enrol: Florida does NOT license sonographers, because the statute is written about radiation rather than about imaging.

Health Care Administrator Health and Medical Administrative Services

Running the non-clinical half of health care — budgets, staffing, quality, compliance, revenue, regulators. $123,860 median, 616,200 employed, 62,100 openings a year, growing much faster than average. ⚠⚠ There is no required major: Census microdata puts HEALTH first at 169,319 people, BUSINESS second at 75,396 and PSYCHOLOGY third at 47,154. ⚠⚠⚠ But Florida statute puts a price on the choice — on the nursing home side, a health administration major halves the required training programme from 2,000 hours to 1,000.

Health Information Technician, Coder and Medical Office Administrator Health and Medical Administrative Services

⚠⚠⚠ Three different routes wear this name in Florida, they are taught at roughly the same number of institutions, and only ONE of them leads to the field's professional credential. Health information management — 31 institutions, and the associate degree is what makes you RHIT-eligible. Billing and coding — 37 institutions and the largest output, all clock-hour certificates, none of which does. Medical office administration — 36 institutions into an occupation of 850,000 people with no credential ladder at all. ⚠⚠ Choosing wrongly does not waste a term; it forecloses the credential.

Licensed Practical Nurse Practical Nursing, Vocational Nursing and Nursing Assistants

LPNs give direct nursing care under an RN or physician — medications, wounds, vital signs, assessment — and supervise aides. ⚠ It is the widest-taught credential on this site (48 Florida institutions, 1,322 completions a year), a median of $64,400, and the one field where Florida law publishes each programme's licence-examination pass rate before you enrol. Look it up.

Medical Assistant and Pharmacy Technician Allied Health and Medical Assisting Services

Two of the largest short-certificate routes into health care in Florida, paying within $60 a year of each other and taught at the same technical colleges — and the state treats them completely differently. ⚠⚠⚠ Florida writes down in statute exactly what a medical assistant may do, including venipuncture and administering medication, and requires NO licence, certificate or training to do it. It requires a pharmacy technician, working behind a counter, to register with the Board of Pharmacy and complete a board-approved programme. ⚠⚠ And the medical assisting programme has FOUR labelled exit points you can leave on and be hired at — the pharmacy technician programme has none.

Medical Laboratory Scientist Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science/Research and Allied Professions

Medical laboratory scientists produce the results a diagnosis is made from — haematology, clinical chemistry, microbiology, immunology and the blood bank — and catch the result that is wrong before a physician acts on it. ⚠⚠ Florida is one of the few states that LICENSES this work: you may not report a clinical laboratory result here without a licence. ⚠⚠⚠ Read the wage section before you commit: this is a four-year degree paying less than three of the two-year health paths on this site, and that trade-off is the honest centre of this page.

Occupational Therapy Assistant Allied Health and Medical Assisting Services

Occupational therapy assistants deliver the treatment that gets people back to doing ordinary things — dressing, cooking, writing, working, playing — after injury, stroke, developmental delay or mental illness. ⚠ A median of $72,300 on a two-year degree, growing 21%. ⚠⚠⚠ And the finding worth acting on: it pays MORE and grows FASTER than the physical therapist assistant, and Florida trains a QUARTER as many. Four institutions, 57 graduates a year. This page covers the assistant, the aide and the therapist.

Paramedic Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, and Treatment Professions

Paramedics are the highest level of prehospital care — assessing and stabilising at the scene, administering drugs, managing advanced airways, reading ECGs and running a cardiac arrest before the patient reaches a hospital. ⚠ Median $60,600, reached through a certificate rather than a degree, and stacked on top of a short EMT course most people complete first. ⚠⚠ In Florida this is substantially a FIRE SERVICE credential: departments pay for it and pay extra for holding it. ⚠⚠⚠ And the accreditation rule here is the strictest on this site — the wrong programme leaves you unable to certify at all.

Pharmacist Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Administration

⚠⚠ One route: the Doctor of Pharmacy, awarded in Florida's public system by UF, FAMU and USF (about 412 a year). ⚠⚠ Admission turns on two or more years of prerequisite science, not a bachelor's degree: UF's minimum is an associate degree, and more than half of Pharm.D. applications nationally come from people without a bachelor's. Median pay is $140,910 nationally and $135,970 in Florida. BLS expects retail demand to be limited as prescriptions move online and by mail.

Phlebotomist Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science/Research and Allied Professions

The shortest formal route into health care Florida operates. ⚠⚠⚠ Of 772 phlebotomy credentials awarded by 29 Florida public institutions in 2023, EVERY ONE was a certificate of under twelve weeks — about 165 clock hours, most of it at a district technical college. It pays $45,230, essentially the same as a medical assistant or a pharmacy technician on ten times the training. ⚠⚠ And Florida's clinical laboratory licensing statute names phlebotomists in its EXCLUSION, one rung below two occupations the same statute licenses.

See every career in HEALTH PROFESSIONS AND RELATED PROGRAMS →

Courses along this path

Selected, not exhaustive — the courses specific to this path plus the foundations it is built on. A course number does not identify a course in Florida: always check your own institution's catalog and take a syllabus to an adviser.

BSC2085 —Anatomy and Physiology I Guide

Anatomy and Physiology I — 20 institutions. The gate to every nursing programme in Florida, and the grade competitive admission usually turns on.

⚠ ⚠ Two equivalent packagings: BSC2085 plus BSC2085L at 20 institutions, combined BSC2085C at 7. ⚠⚠ Also numbered APK2100C at some institutions — and BSC is what nursing prerequisite lists NAME, so take the BSC version unless your programme says otherwise.

BSC2085L —Anatomy and Physiology I Laboratory Guide

Anatomy and Physiology I Laboratory — 19 institutions, the corequisite half.

BSC2086 —Anatomy & Physiology II Guide

Anatomy and Physiology II — 19 institutions. Cardiovascular, renal, endocrine and reproductive systems.

⚠ ⚠ Also carried as the combined BSC2086C at 7 institutions.

BSC2086L —Anatomy and Physiology II Lab Guide

Anatomy and Physiology II Laboratory — 19 institutions.

MCB2010 —Microbiology Guide

Microbiology — 16 institutions. Universal nursing prerequisite, and the basis for infection control and antibiotic prescribing later.

⚠ ⚠ MCB2010L, the laboratory, is carried at 15 and is separately required by most programmes.

STA2023 —Elementary Statistics Guide

Elementary Statistics — 39 institutions. Required for nursing admission and again for graduate work; evidence-based practice is the DNP's organising idea and it is statistical.

PSY2012 —General Psychology Guide

Introduction to Psychology — 33 institutions. A standard prerequisite, and behavioural health is a large share of primary care practice.

DEP2004 —Human Growth & Development Guide

Developmental Psychology — 29 institutions. Commonly required, and directly relevant to paediatric and gerontological practice.

HUN1201 —Human Nutrition Guide

Human Nutrition — a standard nursing prerequisite and the foundation for chronic disease management, which is most of primary care.

⚠ ⚠ Florida numbers nutrition several ways — HUN1201, HUN2201 and DIE prefixes. Check which your programme names.

CHM1020 —Chemistry in Society Guide

Chemistry for Liberal Studies — carried very widely and carrying the (GE CORE) marker, so it satisfies the natural science area at every Florida public institution. ⚠ Check whether your nursing programme wants this or a majors chemistry sequence.

⚠ ⚠⚠ Nursing programmes differ sharply here: some accept a non-majors chemistry, some require CHM1045. Confirm before enrolling — it is a common and expensive mistake.

ENC1101 —English Composition I Guide

English Composition I — 39 institutions. Universal, and a nurse practitioner's documentation is a legal record and a billing document at once.

SYG2000 —Introduction to Sociology Guide

General Sociology — 29 institutions. Frequently required, and the social determinants framing is what primary care practice actually runs into.

HSC1531 —Medical Terminology Request a guide

Medical Terminology — 16 institutions. Cheap, universally useful, and usually assumed rather than required.

⚠ ⚠ Florida numbers this twice: HSC1531 at 16 institutions and HSC2531 at 8.

Where you can take these courses in Florida

39 Florida public institutions teach courses on this path. The count is how many of the 12 listed courses each one carries — it shows where the path is best covered. It is not a statement that a school offers this as a degree; for that, check the institution’s own programme list.

Broward College

12 of 12

PESC

Pensacola State College

12 of 12

SJRSC

St. Johns River State College

12 of 12

College of Central Florida

11 of 12

IRSC

Indian River State College

11 of 12

SFC

Santa FE College

11 of 12

FGC

Florida Gateway College

10 of 12

GCSC

Gulf Coast State College

10 of 12

MDC

Miami Dade College

10 of 12

PBSC

Palm Beach State College

10 of 12

SPC

St. Petersburg College

10 of 12

TSC

Tallahassee State College

10 of 12

FAMU

Florida A & M University

9 of 12

FSU

Florida State University

9 of 12

SCFMS

State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota

9 of 12

FIU

Florida International University

8 of 12

Hillsborough College

8 of 12

USF

University of South Florida

8 of 12

LSSC

Lake-Sumter State College

7 of 12

PSC

Polk State College

7 of 12

SSCF

Seminole State College of Florida

7 of 12

Valencia College

7 of 12

EFSC

Eastern Florida State College

6 of 12

FAU

Florida Atlantic University

6 of 12

FSWSC

Florida Southwestern State College

6 of 12

FSCJ

Florida State College at Jacksonville

6 of 12

NFC

North Florida College

6 of 12

NWFSC

Northwest Florida State College

6 of 12

UWF

University of West Florida

6 of 12

DSC

Daytona State College

5 of 12

FGCU

Florida Gulf Coast University

5 of 12

PHSC

Pasco-Hernando State College

5 of 12

SFSC

South Florida State College

5 of 12

CFK

The College of the Florida Keys

5 of 12

UCF

University of Central Florida

5 of 12

UNF

University of North Florida

5 of 12

FLPOLY

Florida Polytechnic University

4 of 12

University of Florida

4 of 12

NCF

New College of Florida

3 of 12

Sources

Requirements change. These are the authorities that decide them — check them directly before committing to a route.

O*NET — Nurse Practitioners (29-1171.00) — 320,400 employed (2024), growth much faster than average (7% or higher), 29,500 annual openings, median $132,300 (2025). Education 65% master's, 26% doctoral, 4% bachelor's. Tasks include diagnosing and treating acute, episodic or chronic illness independently or as part of a team, developing treatment plans, prescribing medications as legally authorized, and ordering or interpreting diagnostic tests.
O*NET — Nurse Anesthetists (29-1151.00) — ⚠⚠ The best-paid nursing role in the United States: median $236,590 (2025), which is $104,290 above the nurse practitioner median. ⚠ But 53,800 employed and only 2,700 annual openings, against the NP's 29,500 — and Florida has three public programmes awarding 55 credentials a year. Education 56% doctoral, 41% master's.
O*NET — Nurse Midwives (29-1161.00) — 8,600 employed, about 500 annual openings, median $134,040 (2025), growth much faster than average. Education 81% master's, 16% post-master's certificate. ⚠ The smallest of the three — and the only specialty Florida's autonomy statute actually unlocks beyond primary care.
Section 464.0123, Florida Statutes — autonomous practice by an APRN — ⚠⚠⚠ Registration needs an unencumbered licence, no discipline in five years, 3,000 clinical practice hours within five years under physician supervision, 3 graduate semester hours each in differential diagnosis and pharmacology, and liability coverage of at least $100,000 per claim. ⚠⚠ Scope: autonomous practice ONLY in primary care — family medicine, general paediatrics, general internal medicine — with no surgery except subcutaneous procedures. ⚠ Confirmed unchanged in the 2025 statutes.
Florida House staff analysis, HB 771 (2024) — autonomous practice for psychiatric nurses — ⚠⚠⚠ The source for the limit nobody reports: "All APRN specialties are eligible for autonomous practice, however, only certified midwives are currently authorized to practice any specific functions related to their specialty area without an established physician protocol." Also the uptake: 11,201 APRNs registered for autonomous practice, and 3,458 psychiatric nurses of whom 1,093 hold primary-care autonomous registration. ⚠ The bill DIED in subcommittee on 8 March 2024.
NONPF — Reaffirming the DNP: Entry to NP Practice by 2025 (April 2023) — ⚠⚠ NONPF committed on 20 April 2018 to move all entry-level NP education to the DNP by 2025 and reaffirmed it in 2023. Its trend data: DNP NP programmes 124 in 2014 to 254 in 2021; BSN-to-DNP graduates 934 in 2015 to 3,327 in 2021; MSN NP entry has levelled. ⚠⚠⚠ But NONPF is an association of FACULTIES — the commitment carries no regulatory force, AANP and ANCC still certify master's-prepared NPs, and only state boards set the licensure degree.
IPEDS Completions 2023 (C2023_A) — CIP 51.38 — ⚠⚠ The base against the top. Registered nursing (51.3801): 39 Florida public institutions, 10,372 credentials — 5,037 associate, 4,774 bachelor's, only 522 master's. Nursing practice, the DNP (51.3818): ⚠ 8 institutions, 538 credentials, 532 of them professional doctorates — UF 114, UNF 86, USF 83, FIU 81, UCF 69, FAU 40, FGCU 37, FSU 28. Nurse anesthesia (51.3804): 3 institutions, 55. Family nurse practitioner as a named master's (51.3805): 2 institutions, 127, with UWF awarding 95 of them.

Last updated 23 September 2026.