If you pursue a doctor's degree in nursing, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #5 most popular program in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
College Factual looked at 2 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Nursing Doctor's Degree Schools in South Carolina ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 129 doctor's degrees in nursing to qualified students.
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their doctor's degree from the school. After all, your doctor's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on nursing students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of nursing students who choose to seek a doctor's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How easy is it for nursing to pay back their student loans after receiving their doctor's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized nursing related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for nursing students working on their doctor's degree.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Nursing Doctor's Degree Schools in South Carolina list to help you make the college decision.
Best Schools for Doctorate Students to Study Nursing in South Carolina
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a doctor's degree in nursing.
Top South Carolina Schools for a Doctorate in Nursing
Medical University of South Carolina is a wonderful choice for students pursuing a doctor's degree in nursing. Located in the midsize city of Charleston, MUSC is a public university with a small student population.
Those nursing students who get their doctor's degree from Medical University of South Carolina make $5,919 more than the standard nursing grad.
Any student who is interested in a doctor's degree in nursing needs to check out University of South Carolina - Columbia. UofSC is a fairly large public university located in the midsize city of Columbia.
Students who graduate with their doctorate from the nursing program report average early career income of $97,385.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
