The Bureau of Labor Statistics median salary for nurse practitioners is $132,300 a year, the highest of the common online master's tracks in nursing and roughly $35,000 above registered nurses. The payoff is the reason the MSN is the growth path in healthcare.
Key Takeaways
- The median nurse practitioner salary is $132,300 a year, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- Registered nurses earn a median $97,550, so the advanced practice credential is worth about $35,000 a year on the median.
- The master's is a graduate credential; clinical and license requirements vary by state, so check the license path before you pick a program.
- The degree takes one to two years after the BSN and license, and the online MSN plus clinical hours is the standard route.
- The best online nursing programs in our data finish 85% to 92% of their students, so compare completion before you pick a school.
The median number and what it means
The $132,300 figure is the national median: half of nurse practitioners earn more and half earn less. It describes full-time workers across all settings, specialties, and states, so your own number will depend on where you practice, in what specialty, and under which employer.
Compare it to the $97,550 median for registered nurses and the $83,680 median for all management occupations, and the case for the advanced practice degree writes itself. The premium comes from the prescriptive and diagnostic authority the degree and board exam add to the RN license.
How the other MSN tracks compare
The BLS only publishes salaries for jobs, not for tracks, so it is cleaner to look at the advanced practice roles side by side. Certified registered nurse anesthetists earn a median of $216,750, midwives $129,650, and nurse practitioners $132,300. Clinical nurse specialists sit lower, near $90,000 to $100,000 depending on the source.
Nurse educators and nurse executives, the other common MSN tracks, earn in the $80,000 to $120,000 range. The single degree, the MSN, leads to very different pay depending on the track your program points you toward, which is why the specialty choice matters more than the school name.
What the degree costs you to get there
The MSN is normally 30 to 45 credits of graduate study after the BSN and the RN license, at a pace most working nurses cover in one to two years. Online MSN programs hold the same coursework with clinical hours and proctored exams attached.
Whole-school figures from our nursing rankings give a sense of the price spread. University of Florida nets $6,541 a year and finishes 91% of its students. University of North Carolina Chapel Hill nets $11,655 and finishes 92%. George Washington nets $36,586 and its graduates earn $90,873 a decade later.
The states and employers that pay the most
The federal salary data is your baseline, not your ceiling. Compensation varies sharply by state and by setting: hospitals, clinics, and telehealth employers each price the role differently, and full-practice authority states tend to have higher wage floors because nurse practitioners work more independently.
Ask the program about placement into a full-practice-authority state if mobility matters to you, and ask current students what their signing bonus and shift differentials look like. Both are numbers the department will explain.
License steps after the salary math
The salary is what the degree can do, not what any single graduate takes home. Before you enroll, confirm three things with your board of nursing: the exact advanced practice license title, the national board exam your track requires, and the state authorization rules for online programs placing students into clinical sites.
Nurse practitioners renew licenses with continuing education and a practice-hours requirement, so budget a few days a year for recertification in addition to the tuition.
Where these numbers come from
Salary figures are the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics medians for the occupations named. Net prices, completion rates, and earnings for the schools named are published College Scorecard data describing undergraduates who received federal aid. License and practice authority rules come from the state boards that set them.
All guides|Source figures: U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard, unless a section says otherwise.