Holy Family University FNP Programs

School of Nursing & Health Sciences • Philadelphia, PA • UPDATE • $955/credit

Holy Family University offers 2 Family Nurse Practitioner Tracks:

  • MSN
  • Post-Master’s Certificate

Program Tracks Overview

ProgramEst. TuitionEst. DurationCredit Hours
MSN$37.2K2–3 yrs 39
Post-MSN Cert.$17.2K–$25.8K Not stated18–27

Holy Family’s defining feature is that it publishes the weekly clinical commitment, not just the total: each of the six FNP specialty courses carries 125 clinical hours at a stated 9 hours per week. Coursework is fully asynchronous online with no campus requirement, so the clinical block is the only fixed demand on your calendar.

Quick Facts

FeatureDetails
Program TypesMSN (39 credits) and Post-Master’s Certificate (18 credits base)
FormatFully online, asynchronous. No campus visits stated.
Term Length15-week semesters, not accelerated 7- or 8-week terms
Clinical Hours750 (six courses at 125 hours each; 9 hours per week)
Clinical PlacementNot clearly stated. No published placement or preceptor policy.
PopulationPrimary care across the lifespan, including pregnant patients
Distinctive CourseworkFive specialty courses each dedicated to one population segment
Grade StandardB minimum per course. A third sub-B grade means dismissal.
RN License RequirementsUnencumbered RN license in the practicum state; PA license may be required
Tuition$955 per credit, plus $167 general fee per semester
AccreditationCCNE (master’s degree); MSCHE institutional

MSN — Family Nurse Practitioner

The estimated tuition for the MSN Family Nurse Practitioner track at Holy Family University is approximately $37,245 (39 credits at $955 per credit).

The program can generally be completed in about two to three years, though Holy Family publishes that range for its MSN program as a whole rather than for the 39-credit FNP track specifically.

MSN Curriculum

The FNP track is built in two clearly separated phases, and the prerequisite structure is what makes it unusual. All seven foundation courses — the four core courses plus the three P’s — are listed as prerequisites for every one of the six specialty courses. You cannot start a single clinical hour until 21 of the 39 credits are behind you.

Foundation phase (21 credits, zero clinical hours). Four core courses cover leadership and role development, research and evidence-based practice, policy and ethics, and population health. The three P’s follow in a fixed chain: pathophysiology, then pharmacology, then advanced assessment. Holy Family writes the lifespan requirement into these courses directly rather than leaving it to the specialty sequence — the pathophysiology course names pediatric, adolescent, adult, geriatric, and pregnant patients explicitly, and the assessment course carries the same scope.

FNP specialty sequence (18 credits, 750 clinical hours). Six courses, each three credits and each carrying 125 clinical hours. What distinguishes the sequence is that it assigns a dedicated course to each population segment rather than blending them: children and young adults get one course, complex chronic and acute illness gets two, older adults get one, and women’s health including pregnancy gets its own full course. Programs more commonly fold obstetric and geriatric content into a general lifespan course. Here they are separate graded courses with their own clinical hours attached.

  • NURS 620 — Leadership, Role Development, and Foundations of Practice (3)
  • NURS 621 — Research and Evidence-Based Practice (3)
  • NURS 622 — Policy, Diversity, and Ethical Issues in Healthcare (3)
  • NURS 623 — Population Health, Health Promotion and Disease Prevention (3)
  • NURS 626, 627, 628 — Advanced Pathophysiology, Advanced Pharmacology, Advanced Physical Assessment and Diagnostic Reasoning (9)
  • NURS 631 — Intro to Professional Practice (3; 125 clinical hours)
  • NURS 632, 633, 634 — Care of Families I, II, III (9; 375 clinical hours)
  • NURS 635, 636 — Care of Families IV, V (6; 250 clinical hours)

NOTE: The program page names NURS 631 “Intro to Professional Practice.” The 2025–2026 graduate catalog names the same course “Introduction to Clinical Practice.” Same course code, same credits, same 125 hours.

More curriculum details are available here.

MSN Clinical Requirements

  • 750 total clinical hours, distributed as 125 hours in each of six specialty courses
  • Published cadence of 9 clinical hours per week, per course
  • Clinical hours begin with the first specialty course, NURS 631 — there is no separate capstone practicum
  • All 21 credits of foundation coursework must be complete before any specialty course begins
  • Clinical failure is grounds for dismissal from the MSN program
  • Placement model, preceptor requirements, and faculty site visits: Not clearly stated
  • NOTE: Holy Family’s MSN materials carry a footnote reading “All MSN Tracks require 500 clinical hours.” That total matches the Education and Leadership tracks exactly (125 + 125 + 250 = 500). It does not match the FNP track, whose six courses sum to 750. The catalog’s own certificate section confirms a 750-hour minimum for FNP, citing CCNE and NONPF standards. Treat 750 as the operative figure and confirm it in writing.

At 750 hours, this program sits 50 percent above the 500-hour national certification floor and above the 600-to-700 band most FNP programs occupy. The more useful number, though, is the weekly one. Nine hours per week is roughly one full clinical day, which is a commitment most working nurses can plan a schedule around. The complication is that the source never states how many specialty courses you may take at once. One per semester stretches the specialty phase across six semesters. Two per semester compresses it to three but doubles the weekly clinical load to 18 hours, which is a different job situation entirely. Ask before you enroll. The larger gap is placement: Holy Family publishes nothing about who secures your clinical sites. Absent a stated commitment, plan on sourcing your own preceptors, and start that work during the foundation phase rather than after it.

MSN Admissions

Admission is holistic rather than threshold-based, and two conditions are worth noting before you apply: applicants below a 3.0 GPA may be admitted on probation rather than denied, and the School of Nursing may request an interview.

  • BSN from a program accredited by CCNE, ACEN, or NLN CNEA at a regionally accredited institution
  • Undergraduate GPA of 3.0 or above; below 3.0 may be admitted on probation, cleared by completing six graduate credits with a B in each
  • Current, active, unencumbered RN license in the state where you will complete the practicum
  • If you do not hold a compact-state license, a Pennsylvania RN license may also be required. The program page’s version of this requirement names only the Education and Leadership tracks; the catalog states it as a general MSN requirement. Confirm which applies to FNP.
  • Undergraduate statistics course with a grade of C or higher, required before enrolling in graduate research courses
  • Official transcripts from all institutions attended
  • Personal statement of 250 to 500 words
  • Professional resume
  • Interview may be requested

Post-Master’s Certificate — Family Nurse Practitioner

The estimated tuition for the Post-Master’s Certificate in Family Nurse Practitioner at Holy Family University is approximately $17,190 at the published 18-credit baseline (18 credits at $955 per credit), rising to about $25,785 if the three P’s must be repeated. Duration is not clearly stated for this track.

Certificate Curriculum

The certificate is the MSN’s specialty block lifted out whole: the same six courses, NURS 631 through 636, at the same 18 credits. There is no separate certificate curriculum. What varies is what gets added in front of it. Holy Family runs a gap analysis on each admitted student and builds an individual plan of study from the result, so the published 18 credits is a floor rather than a fixed total.

The most common addition is the three P’s. Holy Family requires that pathophysiology, pharmacology, and advanced assessment coursework have been completed within the last five years. Nurses who earned an MSN in a non-clinical specialty, or who completed those courses more than five years ago, should expect to repeat all nine credits — a difference of roughly $8,600 and at least one additional semester. The school directs applicants to contact admissions before applying for this reason, which is the right sequence.

  • NURS 631 — Intro to Professional Practice (3; 125 clinical hours)
  • NURS 632 — Care of Families I (3; 125 clinical hours)
  • NURS 633 — Care of Families II (3; 125 clinical hours)
  • NURS 634 — Care of Families III (3; 125 clinical hours)
  • NURS 635 — Care of Families IV (3; 125 clinical hours)
  • NURS 636 — Care of Families V (3; 125 clinical hours)
  • Additional didactic or practicum coursework as determined by gap analysis

More curriculum details are available here.

Certificate Clinical Requirements

  • Minimum of 750 supervised clinical hours, stated directly in the graduate catalog
  • Catalog cites CCNE and NONPF standards as the basis for the 750-hour minimum
  • Hours are distributed identically to the MSN: 125 per course across six courses at 9 hours per week
  • Catalog states the plan of study will include didactic and practicum courses beyond the original master’s degree
  • Placement model and preceptor requirements: Not clearly stated

Certificate applicants should read that last catalog line carefully. Clinical hours earned during a prior master’s degree do not appear to reduce the 750 — the practicum sequence sits on top of what you already completed. That is standard for FNP certificates and correct under national standards, but it means an experienced nurse with an existing MSN and years of practice still logs the full 750 hours. The certificate saves you the 21 credits of foundation coursework, not the clinical time.

Certificate Admissions

The gate here is credential and currency: you need a completed master’s degree in nursing, and your three P’s coursework must be recent enough to count.

  • Master’s degree in nursing from an accredited program
  • Three P’s coursework completed within the last five years
  • Gap analysis determines the individual plan of study
  • Contact admissions before applying to establish which courses transfer
  • Remaining requirements follow the MSN admission standards

Tuition

Holy Family charges $955 per credit hour for MSN programs and nurse practitioner certificates. That is a single published rate with no residency distinction, which is what you would expect from a private institution — out-of-state nurses pay the same as Pennsylvania residents. Applied to the FNP track’s 39 credits, tuition comes to approximately $37,245. The certificate at its 18-credit baseline comes to approximately $17,190.

  • Tuition: $955 per credit hour
  • MSN FNP: 39 credits × $955 = $37,245
  • Post-Master’s Certificate: 18 credits × $955 = $17,190
  • General fee: $167 per semester or session, covering library, health services, career counseling, and technology
  • Graduation fee: $165
  • Estimated all-in MSN cost across six to seven semesters: approximately $38,400 to $38,600, excluding unpublished fees

Be aware that:

  • The fee schedule qualifies the $955 rate as applying to non-clinical tuition. All six FNP specialty courses carry clinical hours, and no separate clinical rate is published. This is the single largest open question in the cost picture and should be resolved in writing before you deposit.
  • A malpractice fee is charged annually, but the schedule directs you to a separate course fee list rather than publishing the amount.
  • Course fees are handled the same way — referenced but not published.
  • The certificate’s $17,190 figure assumes the gap analysis adds nothing. Adding the three P’s brings the total to roughly $25,785.
  • A cohort tuition lock appears on the fee page — existing cohorts hold their rate for the duration, and cohorts starting after July 1 pay the prevailing rate. The note sits under the doctoral heading, so whether it governs MSN cohorts is unclear.
  • The semester count used for the general-fee estimate is derived from credit load, not published by the school, so the fee total is an estimate.

The published rate is competitive for a private Philadelphia institution, but the “non-clinical” qualifier and the two unpublished fee schedules mean the real all-in figure could land meaningfully above $38,600. Get an itemized cost sheet for the full 39 credits before committing.

Current rates are published on Holy Family’s tuition and fees page.

Why Choose This FNP Program?

This program fits nurses who want the clinical commitment quantified before they enroll, who can protect roughly one weekday for patient care through the back half of the program, and who are prepared to find their own preceptors.

The strongest practical argument for Holy Family is the transparency of the clinical schedule. Most FNP programs publish a total — 600 hours, 750 hours — and leave you to work out what that means for your employment. Holy Family publishes 9 hours per week per course, which is a number you can take to a nurse manager. It also matches the arithmetic: 125 hours at 9 per week fills about 14 weeks of a 15-week semester, so the cadence is real rather than promotional. The 15-week semester structure supports this. Longer terms spread the same hours thinner than the 7- and 8-week accelerated terms common in online nursing, which cram clinical hours into compressed windows.

The trade-offs are structural. The two-phase design means you spend 21 credits — potentially a full year — in coursework with no patient contact, then face all 750 hours in the back half. Nurses who want clinical exposure early will not find it here. And the placement gap is real: Holy Family publishes nothing about who secures your sites, no preceptor policy, no faculty site visit commitment. In Pennsylvania’s dense Philadelphia-area market, several programs do make explicit placement commitments. If preceptor sourcing is the thing that worries you most, that absence should weigh heavily.

The honest test is whether you can sustain the load. Run the numbers against your actual schedule before you apply: ask how many specialty courses you may take per semester, because the answer determines whether phase two costs you 9 hours a week for six semesters or 18 hours a week for three. Then ask whether your employer will accommodate that for the full stretch, and whether you have a preceptor relationship you can build on now. If those three answers hold, the structure works and the price is reasonable. If any one of them is shaky, the back-loaded design will find the weakness — you will be deepest in clinical hours at exactly the point where you have already spent $20,000 and cannot easily walk away.

Accreditation

The master’s degree program in nursing at Holy Family University is accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE), stated in both the program materials and the 2025–2026 graduate catalog. Verified from Holy Family’s own accreditation page, CCNE’s scope covers the baccalaureate degree in nursing, the master’s degree in nursing, and the Doctor of Nursing Practice.

That published scope does not separately name the post-graduate APRN certificate. Many schools list certificate programs explicitly within their CCNE scope statement; certificate applicants should ask Holy Family to confirm in writing that the FNP certificate falls under the accredited master’s program, since certification eligibility depends on it.

Institutionally, Holy Family University is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, with the next scheduled evaluation visit in 2028–2029. The university is also approved by the Pennsylvania State Board of Nursing.

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