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DNP vs. PhD vs. EdD: What to Know About Terminal Degrees for Nursing Faculty
If you've spent any time in nursing faculty Facebook groups or LinkedIn threads lately, you've probably seen it, too: another post from someone thinking about a faculty career, asking which DNP concentration is best for "getting into education." Is it the DNP in Educational Leadership? Nursing education? Academic leadership?
I want to gently push back on that assumption. Not because the DNP isn't valuable (because it absolutely is!), and if you already have one, you can absolutely pursue a position as a nursing faculty. But because the conversation around terminal degrees for aspiring nurse educators has gotten muddled, that confusion isn't serving any of us. Not the profession, not nursing education as a discipline, and honestly, not the people asking the question, who deserve a clear answer instead of a degree-marketing pitch.
So, let's untangle terminal degrees for nursing faculty.
What the DNP Was Actually Built to Do
The Doctor of Nursing Practice exists to prepare expert clinicians. It's a practice doctorate which centers on things like translating evidence into practice, leading quality improvement initiatives, and functioning at the highest level of clinical expertise and systems leadership.
Notice what's not in that list: a formal grounding in curriculum design, learning theory, assessment and measurement, or the scholarship of teaching and learning. That's not a knock on the DNP. It's simply not what the degree was built to do. That's meaningfully different from a degree whose entire purpose, from the first course to the capstone, is training you to understand how people learn and how educational programs should be built.
When DNP programs market an "educational leadership" concentration, what learners are often getting is a handful of courses in curriculum and teaching methods bolted onto a practice-focused degree.
Useful? Sure.
Equivalent to a doctorate built around education as a discipline? Not quite.
What PhD and EdD Programs Are Actually Built to Do
A PhD in nursing is a research doctorate. Its purpose is to prepare nurse scientists to generate new knowledge through rigorous, often quantitative or qualitative research methodology. If your goal is to run a funded research program, mentor doctoral students through dissertations, or contribute to the empirical evidence base of the profession, the PhD is your path.
An EdD, meanwhile, is built around a different core question: how do people learn, and how do we design learning environments — courses, curricula, institutions — that help them learn well? EdD programs (whether in nursing education or, more broadly, educational leadership) immerse you in adult learning theory, instructional design, assessment, accreditation, and organizational leadership within academic settings. When faculty choose the EdD route, it's often because their actual day-to-day work of writing learning objectives, building rubrics, redesigning a course for asynchronous delivery, sitting on a curriculum committee is educational work. It makes sense to hold a credential that was built around exactly that.
Neither the PhD nor the EdD is "better" than the other in some universal sense. They answer different questions. The PhD asks, "How do we generate new nursing knowledge?" The EdD asks, "How do we teach, lead, and build programs well?" If your preferred future faculty role is heavy on curriculum design, program evaluation, or academic leadership, the EdD maps directly onto that work in a way a practice doctorate doesn't.
So Why Are So Many People Choosing the DNP to Prepare as a Faculty?
If the DNP wasn't built for education, why does it keep coming up as the default answer?
Availability is a genuine barrier.
DNP programs have grown tremendously over the past two decades, signficantly outpacing PhD enrollment, while EdD programs specific to nursing education remain comparatively rare.
Almost all nursing faculty positions are open to PhD in Nursing graduates, but nursing professionals are pursuing DNP degrees in unprecedented numbers, so much that U.S. colleges now offer more DNP programs than nursing PhD programs. Nursing-specific EdD programs are even scarcer, and can be housed not in nursing departments but in colleges of education, which means many working NPs and RNs simply never encounter one while researching "doctorate for nurse educators."
The EdD is less common in nursing but growing, particularly for nurses drawn to curriculum design (like me!), educational leadership, or administrative roles. The option exists, but it's just not the one search results and university marketing put in front of people first.
Time to completion matters, and the DNP is genuinely faster.
Plan on about 3 years or less to complete a DNP, compared with 4 to 7 years for a PhD or EdD. For someone already working full-time, precepting students, or raising a family, that's not a small thing and can be the difference between starting a doctorate now and putting it off indefinitely.
The path can feel more familiar.
Many aspiring educators already hold an MSN and looking at a DNP housed in a nursing department, built around clinical scholarship, can feel like a more natural next step than a doctorate housed in a college of education. Many institutions also accept any of these doctoral degrees for faculty positions, which is part of what keeps the lines blurry. If a DNP with an education concentration checks the "terminal degree" box on a job posting, there's little institutional pressure pushing candidates toward a more precisely-matched credential.
A Rough Comparison of Pathways
DNP | PhD | EdD | |
Typical time to completion | ~3 years | 4–7 years | 3–7 years |
Core focus | Clinical practice, systems leadership | Original research, knowledge generation | Teaching, curriculum, educational leadership |
Program availability | Widely available | Available, especially in nursing depts. | Limited |
Best fit if you want to... | Stay clinically active while adding scholarly rigor | Run a research program, mentor doctoral students | Design curriculum, lead academic programs, teach |
None of this means people choosing the DNP are making a poor decision. They're often making the practical one, given what's actually accessible and fundable. But practical isn't the same as best-matched, and if more nursing faculty knew that education-focused doctoral programs existed, more people might choose a pathway that fits their actual goals from day one instead of patching gaps later.
Why This Distinction Actually Matters
It affects the depth of your preparation.
If you become faculty with a DNP, you may find yourself learning curriculum design, backward design, and assessment theory on the job through trial, error, and osmosis from colleagues rather than through structured doctoral coursework. Plenty of excellent faculty have done exactly that, but it does mean the degree didn't entirely prepare you for the role you're now in.
It affects the credibility of nursing education as its own discipline.
Nursing education is a legitimate field of scholarship, with its own theoretical frameworks, journals, and body of research. When "educator" becomes just another concentration bolted onto a clinical practice doctorate, it reinforces the idea that teaching doesn't require its own specialized preparation.
What This Doesn't Mean
To be clear about what I'm not saying:
I'm not saying DNP-prepared faculty are unqualified to teach. Clinical expertise is enormously valuable in the classroom, and plenty of outstanding faculty hold a DNP and teach beautifully, often bringing a real-world clinical credibility to the classroom that research-focused faculty may lack.
I'm not saying you need to go back to school if you have a DNP and are already teaching. If you're in a faculty role and thriving, you don't owe anyone a different credential. Ongoing professional development, mentorship, and teaching-focused certificate programs can close a lot of gaps without requiring another three years or more of doctoral study.
I'm not saying the DNP is a lesser degree. It is a rigorous, legitimate terminal degree for clinical practice, full stop. My concern isn't with the DNP itself but with framing it as the default or primary pathway into education, when degrees actually built around teaching and learning exist and often serve prospective faculty better.
What to Actually Consider If You're Choosing a Terminal Degree Right Now
If you're early in this decision and trying to figure out which terminal degree fits your goals, ask yourself:
What do I actually want my day-to-day work to look like?
Direct patient care with scholarly rigor layered on top → DNP
Generating new research and contributing to the evidence base → PhD
Teaching, curriculum design, program leadership, and academic administration → EdD
Do I want to stay clinically active alongside teaching? Many faculty do, regardless of degree, but if clinical practice is central to your identity, a DNP keeps that door wide open while you also teach.
Am I drawn to the "how" of teaching, or the "what" of nursing science? That distinction alone often clarifies EdD versus PhD faster than any program brochure will.
What does my target institution actually value? Some universities weight research doctorates heavily for tenure-track lines; others are far more focused on teaching effectiveness and program leadership. Look at actual faculty rosters and job postings, not just program marketing.
There's no universally "right" answer here, but there is a more informed one. The goal isn't to make anyone second-guess a degree they already hold. It's to make sure the next generation of faculty chooses a terminal degree because it actually matches the work they want to do, not because a concentration name made it sound like the obvious educator pathway.
Nursing education deserves faculty who are deeply, structurally prepared for the work of teaching, however you get there.
Jacklyn DelPrete, EdD, CRNP, FNP-C, CNE is a family nurse practitioner, full-time graduate nursing faculty member, and founder of The Elevated NP. Questions or topics you'd like covered? Reach out at elevatednpteam@gmail.com.
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