Saint Francis University FNP Programs

Department of Nursing • Loretto, PA • Mostly Online • $625/credit

Saint Francis University offers 2 Family Nurse Practitioner Tracks:

  • MSN
  • Post-Master’s Certificate

Program Tracks Overview

ProgramEst. TuitionEst. DurationCredit Hours
MSN$30,000Not stated48
Post-Master’s Cert.$22,500Not stated36

Saint Francis University’s defining advantage is a hands-on residency sequence that teaches suturing, stapling, casting, splinting, and EKG interpretation — procedural skills most online FNP programs never touch. The rest of the coursework is asynchronous, with three required days on campus across the entire program.

NOTE: The Post-Master’s Certificate is pursuing initial CCNE accreditation and is not yet accredited. The MSN is fully CCNE-accredited. This distinction matters and is covered in detail below.

Quick Facts

FeatureDetails
Program TypesMSN (48 credits); Post-Master’s Certificate (36 credits)
FormatAsynchronous online; one orientation day plus two residency visits to Loretto
Clinical HoursNot clearly stated ⚠
Clinical PlacementNot clearly stated; on-site clinicals completed locally
PopulationFamily / individual across the lifespan, primary care
Distinctive CourseworkResidency weekends covering suturing, casting, splinting, EKG, telehealth
RN Experience GateOne year full-time RN experience before clinical or specialty courses
Admissions GateFaculty interview required for both tracks; no GRE or GMAT
Start TermsSpring, Summer, Fall; rolling admissions
State AuthorizationLimited; SFU states it is working to expand approved states
Tuition$625/credit, both tracks, plus course and semester fees
AccreditationMSN: CCNE-accredited. Certificate: pursuing initial CCNE accreditation

MSN — Family (Individual Across the Lifespan) Nurse Practitioner

The estimated tuition for the MSN Family Nurse Practitioner program at Saint Francis University is approximately $30,000 (48 credits at $625/credit), a figure the university publishes directly rather than one we derived.

Saint Francis does not publish a completion timeline for the track; courses run 7 to 15 weeks and three start terms are available each year.

MSN Curriculum

Structure. The FNP sequence is built around organ-system and life-stage blocks rather than the more common “Primary Care I / II / III” numbering. Courses are compressed into 7-to-15-week terms instead of standard 15-week semesters, which lets working nurses take one course at a time while still moving through the sequence at a reasonable pace.

Specialty sequence. The clinical management courses divide the lifespan explicitly — reproductive health, pediatrics and adolescence, adults and aging, then a synthesis course covering the family unit as a whole. That final integration course carries by far the largest course fee ($2,365), which signals where the heaviest simulation and clinical-tracking software load sits.

Simulation platforms. The fee schedule names two third-party products bundled into the capstone course: i-Human ($485) and Momentum MD ($900). These are virtual patient and clinical-reasoning platforms. Their presence tells you the program leans on structured case simulation to standardize exposure — a reasonable design choice when students are scattered across different preceptor sites with different patient mixes.

  • FNP 602 — Pharmacology for the Family (Individual Across the Lifespan) Nurse Practitioner Prescriber
  • FNP 603 — Advanced Physical Assessment and Differential Diagnosis
  • FNP 605 — Reproductive Health and Illness in Men and Women
  • FNP 606 — Health and Illness in Infants, Children, and Adolescents
  • FNP 607 — Health and Illness in Adults and Aging
  • FNP 608 — Health and Illness in the Family and the Individual Across the Lifespan
  • FNP 609 — Family Nurse Practitioner Role II

⚠ The full course sequence includes at least two additional FNP-prefixed courses (FNP 601 and FNP 604) whose titles and credit values we could not confirm; the university’s live catalog did not return content at the time of writing. Per-course credit values are also unpublished, so the 48-credit total cannot be independently checked against a course list. 

More curriculum details are available here.

MSN Clinical Requirements

  • Total clinical hours: not clearly stated anywhere on the program page, catalog listing, or tuition schedule ⚠
  • Clinical placement model: not stated — the university does not say whether it secures preceptors or students source their own ⚠
  • Clinicals are completed on-site in the student’s own locale
  • RN licensure required in the state where clinicals occur; Pennsylvania licensure required for Pennsylvania clinicals
  • One year of full-time RN experience required before registering for clinical or specialty courses
  • Two on-campus residency weekends are mandatory and tied to clinical progression
  • Program fee of approximately $300 per semester applies during clinical coursework

The unstated clinical hour total is the single largest gap on this page. Every accredited FNP program must deliver at least 500 direct patient care hours to meet national certification requirements, and most run 600 to 700 or more — but Saint Francis publishes no number, so prospective students cannot compare it against other programs without asking. Ask for the figure in writing before you apply, along with how those hours are distributed across the specialty courses. The unstated placement model is nearly as consequential: whether you or the school finds your preceptors determines how much unpaid administrative work sits between you and graduation.

MSN Admissions

Two requirements stand out: a faculty interview is mandatory, and you must be able to commit to the on-campus residencies before you are admitted — this is screened at the application stage, not discovered later.

  • BSN from an ACEN-, CCNE-, or CNEA-accredited program
  • BSN GPA of 3.0 or higher on a 4.0 scale
  • Current RN license in the U.S. state or territory where clinicals will be completed
  • Minimum one year full-time RN experience before clinical or specialty coursework
  • 500- to 700-word essay on professional and educational goals
  • Two professional references
  • Interview with program faculty, in person, online, or by phone
  • Prerequisites: college-level statistics (200-level preferred) and an undergraduate physical assessment course
  • Demonstrated computer literacy
  • No GRE or GMAT
  • Rolling admissions with Spring, Summer, and Fall starts
  • Up to 6 graduate credits transferable, grade B or better, not applied to a previous degree, taken within five years

Post-Master’s Certificate — Family (Individual Across the Lifespan) Nurse Practitioner

The estimated tuition for the Post-Master’s Certificate FNP program at Saint Francis University is approximately $22,500 (36 credits at $625/credit), also a published university figure. Saint Francis does not state a completion timeline for this track either.

Certificate Curriculum

The certificate carries 36 credits — 75% of the full MSN’s 48. That is a high load for a post-master’s certificate, which more commonly runs 20 to 30 credits nationally, and it means an MSN-prepared nurse is repeating relatively little of the graduate core while absorbing nearly the entire FNP specialty sequence.

A required Gap Analysis form drives the individual plan of study, and up to nine graduate credits may transfer in — three more than the MSN allows. In practice, the 36-credit figure is best read as the ceiling before gap analysis and transfer credit reduce it, not as a fixed requirement. Confirm your own credit count after the gap analysis, because it determines your actual cost.

⚠ Course-level requirements for the certificate were not retrievable at the time of writing. 

More curriculum details are available here.

Certificate Clinical Requirements

  • Total clinical hours: not clearly stated ⚠
  • Same residency attendance requirement as the MSN track
  • One full calendar year of full-time RN experience before clinical or specialty courses
  • RN licensure required in the state where clinicals are completed
  • Same approximate $300 per semester program fee during clinical coursework

Because the certificate’s fee schedule lists the same seven fee-bearing FNP courses as the MSN, the clinical sequence appears to be identical rather than abbreviated. That is consistent with certification requirements — a post-master’s FNP candidate must still complete the full supervised hour count regardless of prior graduate work. Do not assume the certificate is a lighter clinical commitment than the degree.

Certificate Admissions

The certificate requires both a BSN and an MSN transcript, plus a Gap Analysis form that is not part of the MSN application. Note that the published requirements reference an NLNAC-accredited master’s program; NLNAC has been called ACEN since 2013, so this is stale wording rather than a separate accreditor.

  • BSN from an ACEN-, CCNE-, or CNEA-accredited program
  • MSN from an ACEN (listed as NLNAC) or CCNE-accredited program
  • GPA of 3.0 or higher on a 4.0 scale
  • At least one full calendar year of full-time RN experience before clinical or specialty coursework
  • Current RN license in the state where clinicals will be completed
  • Completion of an undergraduate statistics course
  • Completed Gap Analysis form
  • 500- to 700-word goals essay and two professional references
  • Interview with program faculty
  • Commitment to attend required residencies
  • Up to 9 graduate credits transferable, grade B or better, taken within five years

Tuition

Saint Francis charges $625 per credit for both FNP tracks, with no in-state or out-of-state distinction — it is a private university and the rate is uniform. That produces a published program tuition of $30,000 for the 48-credit MSN and $22,500 for the 36-credit certificate. Both figures match the credits-times-rate math exactly, so the published totals are reliable as tuition.

Tuition is not the whole cost. Saint Francis publishes an unusually transparent set of course-level fees on top of the per-credit rate:

  • Course fees attached to seven FNP courses, covering testing, software, and clinical site visits — approximately $6,640 total for the MSN and $6,100 for the certificate (derived estimate: sum of the published per-course fees)
  • The capstone course alone carries $2,365, itemized as $980 course fee, $485 for i-Human, and $900 for Momentum MD
  • Program fee of approximately $300 per semester during clinical coursework
  • Technology fee of $50 per semester
  • Health insurance is required at 9 or more credits per semester, either proof of coverage or purchase through the university

⚠ The certificate’s fee table lists FNP 602 at $1,020 and FNP 603 at $360, while the MSN table lists FNP 602 at $900 and FNP 603 at $1,020. The same course numbers carrying different fees across two tracks with an apparently identical clinical sequence suggests a transcription error in one of the tables. Verify the exact figures before budgeting.

A realistic tuition-plus-fees floor is roughly $36,640 for the MSN and $28,600 for the certificate (derived estimate: published tuition plus summed course fees). Per-semester program and technology fees push this higher, but the university does not publish a semester count for either track, so a full all-in figure cannot be calculated from published data. 

Official tuition and fees page.

Why Choose This FNP Program?

Best suited for nurses who want procedural skills training they can actually use on day one, and who can absorb three days of travel to rural central Pennsylvania in exchange for an otherwise asynchronous program.

The residency weekends are the reason to look at Saint Francis. Most online FNP programs treat on-campus intensives as a compliance box — a skills check-off and a handshake. Saint Francis uses the second residency, roughly seven months before graduation, to teach suturing and stapling lacerations, casting, splinting, EKG interpretation, and telehealth technique. These are billable procedures that show up constantly in family practice and urgent care, and they are the exact skills new graduates most often report feeling unprepared for. The first residency covers head-to-toe physical exam competency and clinical readiness before rotations begin. The university reports cohorts of roughly three to ten students per residency experience, so this is small-group instruction, not a lecture hall.

The cost structure supports this positioning. At $625 per credit the program sits at the lower end of private-university pricing, and the fees are published at the course level rather than buried — you can see what the capstone software costs before you enroll. Saint Francis also publishes four consecutive years of 100% first-time certification pass rates and 100% employment within twelve months, alongside completion rates of 100% in 2025 and 87.5% in 2024. Those are small cohorts, so the percentages move sharply with one or two students, but the program is transparent about publishing them.

The honest trade-offs are real. The clinical hour total is not published anywhere, which is unusual and makes head-to-head comparison impossible without a direct inquiry. The placement model is also unstated, so you cannot tell whether preceptor sourcing falls on you. The certificate track is not yet CCNE-accredited. And state authorization is limited — Saint Francis says plainly it is still working to expand the states where the program is available, so confirm your state is approved before you apply and understand that moving during the program could affect your eligibility to finish.

Accreditation

The MSN degree program in nursing at Saint Francis University is accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE). Institutionally, Saint Francis is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE); MSCHE reaffirmed the university’s accreditation on June 26, 2025, with the next evaluation visit scheduled for 2032–2033. Both FNP tracks are also approved by the Pennsylvania State Board of Nursing.

The Post-Master’s Certificate FNP program is pursuing initial CCNE accreditation and is not currently accredited. Saint Francis states this directly, including the standard caveat that applying does not guarantee accreditation will be granted. This is not a red flag about program quality — the certificate shares faculty and coursework with an accredited MSN — but it has practical consequences. Some state boards and some employers require graduation from an accredited program, and certification bodies set their own eligibility rules. If you are considering the certificate rather than the MSN, ask the program in writing where the accreditation review currently stands, what the expected decision timeline is, and what happens to enrolled students if accreditation is delayed.

Saint Francis states that graduates of both tracks may be eligible to sit for the national FNP certification examination through either the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) or the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners Certification Board (AANPCB) — dual eligibility, confirmed explicitly by the university. Pennsylvania applicants should also note a specific state rule: the Board of Nursing requires the pharmacology course to have been taken within five years of program completion for prescriptive authority eligibility. If you take a leave of absence or stretch the program out, this rule can force a retake.

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