UMass Boston FNP Programs | Family Nurse Practitioner

University of Massachusetts Boston offers 2 Family Nurse Practitioner tracks:

MS
BS to DNP

Program Tracks Overview

Program	Est. Tuition	Est. Duration	Credit Hours
MS	$48.5K / $88.2K	Not clearly stated	48
BS to DNP	$73.7K / $134.0K	Not clearly stated	73

Tuition estimates use UMass Boston’s Fall 2026 per-credit rate, derived by dividing the published nine-credit full-time semester charge by nine, plus the technology fee, student activities fee, and the $800 per-semester Department of Nursing program fee.

UMass Boston builds its doctorate on top of its master’s rather than beside it. All 13 courses in the 48-credit MS FNP track appear, at identical credit values, inside the 73-credit BS to DNP. The doctorate adds 25 credits of leadership, population health, and project seminars onto an unchanged clinical spine, and it publishes a formal exit point: a DNP student who completes 48 credits and 665 clinical hours can petition for the MS on the way through. The master’s-or-doctorate question does not have to be settled at application.

The trade-off is that the decision is cheaper in one direction than the other. Finishing the MS first and returning later for the post-master’s DNP totals 79 credits against 73 for the straight-through route. That six-credit gap is precisely NURSNG 618 (Health Policy) and NURSNG 715 (Health Informatics), two courses the MS already required and the post-master’s DNP requires again.

At the resident rate that is about $5,265 in repeated tuition, plus a second round of enrollment fees. Clinical hours land at 1,065 either way.

Quick Facts

Feature	Details
Program Types	MS (FNP track); BS to DNP (FNP concentration). The post-master’s DNP carries no FNP concentration.
Format	MS fully online. BS to DNP online coursework with campus orientation and selected clinical intensives.
Clinical Hours	BS to DNP: 1,065 published. MS: 665, derived from the DNP en-route master’s threshold.
Clinical Placement	Arranged in collaboration with faculty. No guarantee published. Out-of-state sites may be unavailable.
Population	Individuals and families across the lifespan, with a stated urban and health-equity emphasis.
Distinctive Coursework	NURSNG 637 Mental and Psychosocial Health of the Urban Family; NURSNG 681/682 Primary Care of the Childbearing Family.
Concentrations	None inside the FNP track. BS to DNP students declare FNP or adult-gerontology.
RN License Requirements	A copy of a Massachusetts RN license is required with the application.
Experience Gate	MS: at least one year of clinical experience. BS to DNP: at least one year.
Start Terms	MS FNP: fall and spring. BS to DNP: fall only.
Enrollment Restrictions	F-1 visa applicants ineligible for the fully online MS. California sits outside SARA protections.
Tuition	$877.50 resident, $1,535.60 New England regional, $1,704.50 non-resident, per credit. All derived.
Accreditation	CCNE accredits the BS, MS, and DNP nursing programs.

MS – Family Nurse Practitioner Track

The estimated tuition for the MS FNP track at UMass Boston is approximately $48,529 for Massachusetts residents (48 credits at $877.50 per credit, plus mandatory fees). The program can generally be completed in about six semesters at the university’s nine-credit full-time standard, a derived figure rather than a published completion time. The official program page is the Nursing MS.

MS Curriculum

A shared graduate core. Twenty-seven credits are common to both the FNP and adult-gerontology tracks: the three Ps, evidence-based practice, health policy and finance, health informatics, and a 6-credit health promotion course spanning the lifespan. The 6-credit weight on NURSNG 640 is worth noting. Most FNP curricula treat health promotion as a 3-credit survey; UMass Boston gives it the same credit load as a full practicum, which reflects the program’s stated orientation toward population health and health equity rather than a purely clinical skills sequence.

Where the FNP track actually diverges. The 21-credit track layer is where the specialty is decided, and the divergence is narrower than most applicants expect. FNP and adult-gerontology students take the same three courses: Mental and Psychosocial Health of the Urban Family, Primary Care of Adults, and the 6-credit Primary Care of the Adult Practicum. Only the final two courses differ. FNP students take Primary Care of the Childbearing Family and its 6-credit practicum; adult-gerontology students substitute the older-adult pair. Nine credits out of 48 separate the two credentials.

The urban family course. NURSNG 637 is the item that sets this track apart on paper. Behavioral health content in FNP curricula is usually folded into a general primary care course. Here it is a standalone requirement framed around urban family systems, which fits a program based in Boston and pointed at community health centers and school-based clinics.

NURSNG 601 – Introduction to Advanced Practice Nursing: Knowledge for Practice in the Global Community (3)
NURSNG 614 – Advanced Pathophysiology (3)
NURSNG 615 – Advanced Health Assessment Practicum (3)
NURSNG 634 – Advanced Pharmacology for the Advanced Practice Nurse (3)
NURSNG 640 – Advanced Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Across the Lifespan (6)
NURSNG 637 – Mental and Psychosocial Health of the Urban Family (3)
NURSNG 639 – Primary Care of Adults (3)
NURSNG 670 – Primary Care of the Adult Practicum (6)
NURSNG 681 – Primary Care of the Childbearing Family (3)
NURSNG 682 – Primary Care of the Childbearing Family Practicum (6)

More curriculum details are available here.

You Should Know

No course in the FNP track is named for pediatrics. Care of children appears inside the Primary Care of the Childbearing Family sequence, which carries 9 credits total. Applicants who want a separately taught pediatric primary care course should confirm how peds content is distributed before enrolling.
The program page lists track courses as 21 to 24 credits, but both published tracks total exactly 21. The 24-credit upper bound is unexplained in the source material.
The program page states the MS requires 48 credits from 13 to 15 courses. The graduate catalog states 45 to 48 credits from 12 to 15 courses, a range that covers the 45-credit psychiatric mental health track. The FNP track is 48 credits in both documents.
A capstone is required: a comprehensive paper, an evidence-based project, or a poster or paper presentation, agreed with the advisor. The form is not fixed by the program.
No grade below B counts toward the degree, and no course may be taken pass/fail. The statute of limitations is five years.

MS Clinical Requirements

No clinical hour total is published on the MS program page or in the catalog record for the MS.
Derived total: 665 hours. The DNP’s en-route master’s provision states that a student qualifies for the MS after 48 credits and 665 clinical hours, and 48 credits is exactly the MS FNP total.
Practicum-designated credits in the track: 15 (NURSNG 615, 670, and 682).
Clinical placements are arranged in collaboration with faculty, per the university’s state authorization disclosure.
Placement sites outside Massachusetts may face additional state authorization requirements and may not be available. Out-of-state arrangements should be discussed with the graduate program director first.

At 665 hours the MS sits in the common 600 to 700 band and clears the 500-hour national certification floor by 165 hours. That is a comfortable margin, but the figure carries a caveat that matters more than the number: it comes from a doctoral program requirement, not from a published master’s requirement. The placement language is also softer than a guarantee. “Arranged in collaboration with faculty” describes shared effort, not an institutional commitment to secure a preceptor, and it is a meaningfully different promise from programs that assign sites outright. Combined with the Massachusetts licensure requirement and the caution around out-of-state sites, the practical reading is that this program expects students to be practicing in Massachusetts and to do their clinicals there.

You Should Know

The 665-hour figure is derived, not published for the MS. Confirm the master’s clinical requirement directly with the program before treating it as fixed.
Dividing 665 hours by the 15 practicum credits gives 44.33 hours per credit, which does not match any standard ratio. UMass Boston publishes no per-course hour breakdown, so hours per course cannot be reconstructed.
Who secures the preceptor is not stated. The disclosure language implies a shared responsibility rather than school-assigned placement.
UMass Boston makes professional licensure determinations for Massachusetts only. It has not determined whether the curriculum meets requirements in any other state.

MS Admissions

Two gates shape this application more than anything else: a Massachusetts RN license must be submitted as a document, and at least one year of clinical experience is required before applying. The FNP track is one of only two tracks with a spring intake.

Bachelor’s degree in nursing from an accredited program.
Copy of a current Massachusetts RN license.
At least one year of clinical experience before applying.
Cumulative undergraduate GPA of 2.75 minimum for graduate admission; 3.0 or better recommended for this program.
Official transcripts from all institutions attended, sent directly through a digital delivery service or in hard copy. Scanned or emailed transcripts are not accepted.
Personal statement addressing why you are pursuing graduate study, why this specific track, and how the degree serves your goals.
Two professional references and a current résumé or CV.
Application deadlines: April 1 for fall (all tracks), November 1 for spring (FNP and psychiatric mental health only).
Nonrefundable $75 application fee, waived for UMass Boston alumni and current students finishing before graduate enrollment.

You Should Know

Applicants who require an F-1 visa cannot apply to the Nursing MS. The university states that because the coursework is entirely online, the program does not support F-1 status.
The Massachusetts RN license requirement is an application document, not a pre-matriculation condition. Nurses licensed elsewhere would need Massachusetts licensure in hand before applying.
Two GPA figures are published together without reconciliation: a 2.75 university minimum and a recommended 3.0. The recommended figure is the practical target.
Admission is granted only for the semester requested and does not carry forward to a later term.
UMass Boston participates in NC-SARA, but its protections do not extend to California residents, who may still enroll.

BS to DNP – Family Nurse Practitioner Concentration

The estimated tuition for the BS to DNP with the FNP concentration is approximately $73,671 for Massachusetts residents (73 credits at $877.50 per credit, plus mandatory fees). The program can generally be completed in about nine semesters at the nine-credit full-time standard, again a derived figure rather than a published completion time. The official program page is the Doctor of Nursing Practice.

BS to DNP Curriculum

The master’s spine, unchanged. The 61-credit core absorbs every MS course, including the shared track courses in adult primary care and urban family mental health. The FNP concentration then adds the same two childbearing-family courses the MS uses, for 9 credits. Nothing in the clinical sequence is upgraded for doctoral students. The specialty preparation is identical to the master’s.

What the doctorate actually adds. Twenty-five credits: five DNP project seminars running from evidence translation through dissemination, plus quality improvement, population health, and health systems leadership, plus one elective. The structure is a leadership and translation layer bolted onto a finished NP curriculum rather than a redesign of it. For applicants, that clarifies the choice. The doctorate does not make you a better-prepared clinician at graduation; it makes you a clinician who has also run an implemented quality improvement project in a practice setting.

The elective as a clinical hour lever. Students who need additional clinical hours can substitute NURSNG 735, a DNP Role Immersion Seminar carrying 80 clinical hours, in place of the standard elective. That is a useful built-in adjustment, and it is the only mechanism the source material describes for adding hours.

NURSNG 714 – DNP Seminar I: Translating Evidence to Improve Practice (3)
NURSNG 716 – DNP Seminar II: Designing and Evaluating Improvement Projects (3)
NURSNG 717 – DNP Seminar III: Implementation of a Theory Guided Improvement Project (3)
NURSNG 718 – DNP Seminar IV: Improvement Project Synthesis and Outcomes (2)
NURSNG 719 – DNP Seminar V: Dissemination of Improvement Project Outcomes (2)
NURSNG 722 – Improving Outcomes: Identification, Interventions, and Evaluation of Quality Improvement Activities (3)
NURSNG 745 – Population Health I (3)
NURSNG 765 – Health Systems Leadership (3)
NURSNG 681 and 682 – Primary Care of the Childbearing Family and Practicum, the FNP concentration (9)
NURSNG 735 – DNP Role Immersion Seminar, optional elective substitution carrying 80 clinical hours (3)

More curriculum details are available here.

You Should Know

The graduation criteria state the degree comprises 19 core courses, 3 concentration courses, and 1 elective, but the concentration instruction says to complete two courses, and the FNP concentration lists exactly two. ⚠️ The credit total of 73 reconciles only with the two-course reading.
Time limits conflict across sources. The program page gives an eight-year statute of limitations for the BS to DNP; the catalog record for the same program gives five years. Confirm which applies before planning a part-time route.
The post-master’s MS to DNP is a separate 31-credit pathway with no FNP concentration. It does not confer FNP preparation on its own.
The capstone is an implemented quality improvement project in a clinical setting, directed by UMass Boston faculty, not a literature-based paper.

BS to DNP Clinical Requirements

1,065 total clinical hours, published.
665 of those hours align with the en-route master’s threshold; the remaining 400 correspond to the doctoral phase, matching the 400-hour practicum published for the MS to DNP pathway.
Practicum-designated credits mirror the MS: NURSNG 615, 670, and 682, totaling 15 credits.
NURSNG 735 adds 80 clinical hours if substituted for the elective.
En-route master’s option: students may petition, with program director approval, for the MS after 48 credits and 665 clinical hours.
Placements are arranged in collaboration with faculty; out-of-state sites may be unavailable.

At 1,065 hours the BS to DNP runs well above the 600 to 700 band typical of FNP programs and more than double the 500-hour certification floor. Roughly 400 of those hours sit in the DNP project phase rather than in supervised family primary care, so the volume of specialty clinical training is closer to the master’s figure than the headline number suggests. Read the two totals as answering different questions: 665 approximates FNP preparation, and 1,065 reflects FNP preparation plus doctoral project work. The en-route provision is the genuinely useful feature here. A student who reaches 48 credits and decides the doctorate no longer fits can leave with a credential rather than with nothing.

You Should Know

UMass Boston does not publish a breakdown of how the 1,065 hours split between direct patient care and project work. The 665/400 division is inferred from the en-route threshold and the MS to DNP practicum figure, not stated as a split.
The en-route master’s requires program director approval and is described as an application, not an entitlement.
Whether the 80 hours from NURSNG 735 count toward the 1,065 or sit on top of it is not stated.
No placement guarantee is published for any pathway.

BS to DNP Admissions

The doctoral application is narrower than the master’s in one respect that matters for planning: there is a single annual intake.

Bachelor’s degree in nursing from an accredited program.
Copy of a current Massachusetts RN license.
At least one year of clinical experience for BS to DNP applicants.
Official transcripts from all colleges attended.
Personal statement, two professional references, and a current résumé or CV.
Concentration declared at admission: family nurse practitioner or adult-gerontology nurse practitioner.
Deadline: April 1 for fall admission. No spring intake.
Nonrefundable $75 application fee.

You Should Know

Missing the April 1 deadline means waiting a full year. The MS FNP track, by contrast, admits for both fall and spring.
The DNP adds a campus obligation the MS does not carry. Coursework is online, but the university states students should plan to attend on campus for orientation and selected clinical intensives. Dates and counts are not published.
Massachusetts licensure determinations apply to Massachusetts only. Nurses intending to seek APRN licensure in another state should contact that board before enrolling.
No grade below B applies toward the degree.

Tuition

UMass Boston publishes graduate charges as a per-semester full-time figure rather than a per-credit rate, so the per-credit cost has to be derived. Dividing the Fall 2026 nine-credit full-time charge by nine gives $877.50 per credit for Massachusetts residents, $1,535.60 for New England regional students, and $1,704.50 for non-residents. The university states it bills on a per-credit basis up to 12 credits, so these rates apply directly to total program cost.

Component	Resident	Regional	Non-Resident
Published full-time tuition (9 credits, per semester)	$7,897.50	$13,820.40	$15,340.50
Derived per-credit rate	$877.50	$1,535.60	$1,704.50
Technology fee (per semester)	$225.00	$225.00	$225.00
Student activities fee (per semester)	$43.20	$43.20	$43.20
Department of Nursing program fee (per semester)	$800.00	$800.00	$800.00
MS total (48 credits, 6 semesters)	$48,529	$80,118	$88,225
BS to DNP total (73 credits, 9 semesters)	$73,671	$121,713	$134,042

Confirmed costs:

Fall 2026 full-time graduate tuition per semester: $7,897.50 resident, $13,820.40 regional, $15,340.50 non-resident.
Technology fee $225.00 and student activities fee $43.20 per semester, charged at all three residency rates.
Department of Nursing curriculum and service fee: $800.00 per semester.
One-time charges: combined new student fee $390.00, orientation fee $75.00, new student ID fee $75.00, graduation processing fee $200.00.
Application fee: $75.00, waived for UMass Boston alumni and current students.
Health insurance, waivable with proof of comparable coverage: $1,455.85 for Fall 2026 and $2,036.19 for Spring 2027.

Be aware that:

Every program total on this page is derived. UMass Boston publishes no total cost for the MS or the DNP.
The bursar’s “Total Tuition and Fees” line excludes the $800 Department of Nursing program fee, which appears in a separate table. Over six semesters that is $4,800 the headline figure does not contain; over nine semesters, $7,200.
Semester counts used for the fee stack are derived from the university’s nine-credit full-time standard, not from a published plan of study. Students who carry more or fewer credits per term will pay a different number of fee installments while paying the same tuition.
The published rate chart covers regular-session courses only. Courses offered in the SP1 or SP2 sessions are excluded and may bill differently.
The spring health insurance charge exceeds the fall charge by $580.34. Both figures are published as shown.
Rates shown are Fall 2026. UMass Boston publishes no multi-year rate lock, so later years may cost more.
The regional rate reflects New England regional student pricing. Eligibility rules are not stated in the fee schedule.
Clinical travel, background checks, immunization compliance, and liability coverage are not itemized in the source material.

The practical all-in picture for a Massachusetts nurse is roughly $49,000 for the master’s and roughly $74,000 for the doctorate, before books and clinical travel. The gap between the two, about $25,000, buys 25 credits of leadership and project work rather than additional specialty clinical training. Non-residents should look carefully at the regional rate: at $1,535.60 per credit it sits meaningfully below the $1,704.50 non-resident rate, and for a New England nurse who already holds a Massachusetts RN license it is the figure that determines whether this program is competitive. Full rates are published on the UMass Boston bursar’s tuition and mandatory fees page.

Why Choose This FNP Program?

Best suited for nurses who already hold a Massachusetts RN license, already work in the state, and want to keep the master’s-versus-doctorate decision open rather than commit to it at application.

The deferred credential decision. This is the program’s real structural advantage. Because the MS is an exact subset of the BS to DNP, a nurse can enter the doctorate and still walk away with a master’s at the 48-credit mark if circumstances change. Most schools force the choice up front and make reversing it expensive. UMass Boston prices the reversal at zero, provided you start on the doctoral side. Starting on the master’s side and upgrading later costs six repeated credits, so the direction of travel matters. If there is any realistic chance you will want the doctorate, entering through the BS to DNP is the cheaper path even if you never finish it.

A curriculum pointed at urban community health. The 6-credit health promotion course and the standalone urban family mental health requirement give this program a different center of gravity from a conventional FNP sequence. For a nurse heading toward a community health center, a school-based clinic, or a safety-net practice in greater Boston, that emphasis is genuinely useful preparation rather than a mission statement. For a nurse heading toward a suburban private practice or an urgent care chain, it is 9 credits pointed somewhere other than where they are going.

Who should look elsewhere. Anyone without a Massachusetts RN license, because it is required as an application document rather than as a condition of matriculation. Anyone who needs an F-1 visa, because the fully online MS cannot support one. Anyone who expects to complete clinicals outside Massachusetts, because the university has only made licensure determinations for Massachusetts and flags out-of-state placement as potentially unavailable. And anyone who wants a separately taught pediatric primary care course, since pediatric content here lives inside the childbearing family sequence.

Accreditation

The BS, MS, and DNP nursing programs at UMass Boston are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE). That scope covers both FNP pathways described on this page: the MS Family Nurse Practitioner track and the BS to DNP with the FNP concentration. CCNE accreditation at the graduate level is the credential that certification boards look for, so its presence across all three degree levels means a student moving from the bachelor’s through the doctorate stays inside an accredited sequence throughout.

UMass Boston is institutionally accredited as part of the University of Massachusetts system. Institutional accreditation is what makes credits transferable, makes the degree recognizable to employers and state boards, and makes students eligible for federal financial aid. Program-level nursing accreditation and institutional accreditation are separate approvals, and both are needed.

The DNP program also operates under Massachusetts Board of Registration in Nursing regulations, which govern APRN preparation in the state. UMass Boston states that its graduate nursing programs meet the educational requirements for APRN licensure in Massachusetts.

Graduates of either FNP pathway are prepared to sit for the national FNP certification exam through either the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners Certification Board or the American Nurses Credentialing Center. Passing that exam is the step that converts the degree into practice authority.

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