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There are a num­ber of dif­fer­ent met­rics that can be inter­pret­ed in many dif­fer­ent ways to mea­sure the top bach­e­lor’s of sci­ence in nurs­ing (BSN) pro­grams in the nation. The best pro­gram is going to be the one that meets the expec­ta­tions of an indi­vid­ual stu­dent, which is why it is impor­tant to fig­ure out your own pri­or­i­ties when search­ing for an ide­al BSN. If you are an under­grad­u­ate who is look­ing to take a wide range of aca­d­e­m­ic cours­es while work­ing towards your BSN, the best pro­gram will be dif­fer­ent from a prac­tic­ing RN who is look­ing to enroll in an RN to BSN pro­gram for career advance­ment. There are a wide vari­ety of online RN-BSN pro­grams that will allow prac­tic­ing RNs to have the sched­ule flex­i­bil­i­ty that lets them main­tain their cur­rent employ­ment while work­ing towards their degree. For ref­er­ence to some of the best options for online BSN degree pro­grams, check out our list of the 30 Best Online Bach­e­lors of Nurs­ing Pro­grams. Our rank­ings were based on the fol­low­ing factors:

  • Rep­u­ta­tion Score, from con­sumer report con­glom­er­ates such as Niche.com
  • Cost per cred­it, based on sta­tis­tics from the Nation­al Cen­ter for Edu­ca­tion Statistics
  • Return on Invest­ment, based on the earn­ing poten­tial of grad­u­ates when com­pared to the cost of the degree

Let’s take a clos­er look the top two BSN pro­grams based on our methodology:

George Washington University

George Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty is a pri­vate research uni­ver­si­ty that was estab­lished in 1821, and is locat­ed in Wash­ing­ton, DC. The university’s School of Nurs­ing offers a part-time, four-semes­ter pro­gram for RNs who are look­ing to earn their BSN in two years. The pro­gram requires the com­ple­tion of 21 cred­it hours, as well as a pro­fes­sion­al port­fo­lio. After com­plet­ing the online RN-BSN pro­gram, stu­dents have the option of going on to earn their online MSN degree. The school also offers on-cam­pus options includ­ing the tra­di­tion­al BSN pro­gram and an accel­er­at­ed sec­ond degree BSN pro­gram that allows stu­dents who have already earned a bachelor’s degree in anoth­er field to com­plete their BSN in 15 months. The total cost of tuition for the 2017–18 school year came out to $53,518, which is expen­sive, though stu­dents still receive a great return on invest­ment, which is why it ranks sec­ond on our list of best online BSN programs.

Ohio State University

Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty is a pub­lic uni­ver­si­ty that was found­ed in 1870, and is locat­ed in Colum­bus Ohio. The university’s Col­lege of Nurs­ing offers online and on-cam­pus BSN degrees, as well as an online RN-BSN pro­gram. Ohio State’s online options are fre­quent­ly ranked among the top pro­grams in the coun­try by out­lets such as US News and World Report. Com­bined with a com­pet­i­tive tuition rate of $10,592 for in-state stu­dents, and $29,696 for out-of-state stu­dents, Ohio State ranks as our best online BSN program.

Relat­ed:

25 Best Bach­e­lor’s in Nursing

15 Best Online BSN Programs

10 Fastest Online RN to BSN Programs

10 Most Afford­able Bach­e­lor’s in Nursing