Frontier Nursing University (FNU), located in Versailles, Ky., has the third-best Online Family Nurse Practitioner Master’s Program according to rankings compiled and released by U.S. News and World Report on January 25, 2022.
“We are very honored to be recognized by U.S. News and World Report as having one of the leading online FNP programs in the nation,” said FNU President Dr. Susan Stone, CNM, DNSc, FAAN, FACNM. “We are even prouder of our more than 2,900 Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) graduates who are providing much-needed care to their communities across the country. These graduates are actively fulfilling FNU’s mission to serve all individuals with an emphasis on women and families in diverse, rural, and underserved populations.”
Founded in 1939 as the Frontier Graduate School of Midwifery, FNU has a long history of innovation and leadership in nursing and midwifery education. In the late 1960s, university leaders recognized the need for broader education to provide comprehensive primary care to all family members. This led to the formation of the first Family Nurse Practitioner program in the United States and the university changed its name to the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing to reflect the addition of the FNP program in 1970.
"In the 1950s and 1960s the birth rate dropped and there were more treatments developed to treat chronic conditions. Frontier Nursing Service identified the need for nurses trained in primary care to provide services to the rural and underserved communities," said FNU Dean of Nursing Dr. Joan Slager, CNM, DNP, FACNM, FAAN. "Launching the FNP program was in alignment with FNU's mission of educating nurses to meet the health care needs of rural and underserved communities."
In 1989, FNU established itself as a pioneer in distance education when its leaders recognized the national shortage of nurse-midwives. They understood that there were nurses living in rural and underserved areas who would pursue graduate education if they were given the opportunity without a requirement to leave their home community. FNU developed a hybrid model of distance learning that transformed the university into one of the largest and most successful graduate schools of nursing in the United States. The overall student experience is a hybrid model of two campus experiences, combined with didactic coursework online and community-based clinical practicum in students’ home communities. The FNU network consists of more than 140 didactic faculty and Regional Clinical Faculty (RCF) located nationwide, alumni, clinical preceptors, and more than 2,500 students located in every state, and a dynamic online presence for academic and peer support.
"In the 1950s and 1960s the birth rate dropped and there were more treatments developed to treat chronic conditions. Frontier Nursing Service identified the need for nurses trained in primary care to provide services to the rural and underserved communities. Launching the FNP program was in alignment with FNU's mission of educating nurses to meet the health care needs of rural and underserved communities."
Joan Slager, CNM, DNP, FACNM, FAAN
Dean of Nursing
The U.S. News and World Report rankings are held in high regard due to their thorough and rigorous review process. The online FNP rankings were compiled using these five weighted categories:
Engagement (30%): In a quality program, aspiring advanced practice nurses can readily collaborate with fellow students in their classes and clinical settings. In turn, instructors are not only accessible and responsive but are also tasked with helping create an experience rewarding enough for students to stay enrolled and complete their degrees in a reasonable amount of time.
Faculty Credentials and Training (20%): Strong online nursing programs employ instructors with academic credentials that mirror those of instructors for campus-based programs, and they have the resources to train these instructors to teach distance learners.
Expert Opinion (20%): A survey of high-ranking academic officials in nursing helps account for intangible factors affecting program quality that statistics do not capture. Also, employers may hold in high regard degrees from programs that academics respect.
Services and Technologies (20%): Programs that incorporate diverse online learning technologies allow greater flexibility for students to take classes from a distance. Outside of classes, strong support structures provide learning assistance, career guidance, and financial aid resources commensurate with quality campus-based programs.
Student Excellence (10%): Student bodies entering with proven aptitudes, ambitions and accomplishments can handle the demands of rigorous coursework. Furthermore, online degrees that schools award judiciously will have greater legitimacy in the job market.
FNU has been highly rated in other U.S. News and World Report rankings, including 37th out of 330 Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) programs in 2021. Updated rankings for the DNP and other categories are scheduled to be released in March.
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Carrie Belin is an experienced board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins DNP program, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Georgetown University School of Nursing, and Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. She has also completed fellowships at Georgetown and the University of California Irvine.
Angie has been a full-scope midwife since 2009. She has experience in various birth settings including home, hospital, and birth centers. She is committed to integrating the midwifery model of care in the US. She completed her master’s degree in nurse-midwifery at Frontier Nursing University (FNU) and her Doctorate at Johns Hopkins University. She currently serves as the midwifery clinical faculty at FNU. Angie is motivated by the desire to improve the quality of healthcare and has led quality improvement projects on skin-to-skin implementation, labor induction, and improving transfer of care practices between hospital and community midwives. In 2017, she created a short film on skin-to-skin called 
Justin C. Daily, BSN, RN, has ten years of experience in nursing. At the start of his nursing career, Justin worked as a floor nurse on the oncology floor at St. Francis. He then spent two years as the Director of Nursing in a small rural Kansas hospital before returning to St. Francis and the oncology unit. He has been in his current position as the Chemo Nurse Educator for the past four years. He earned an Associate in Nurse from Hutchinson Community College and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Bethel College.
Brandy Jackson serves as the Director of Undergraduate Nursing Programs and Assistant Educator at Wichita State University and Co-Director of Access in Nursing. Brandy is a seasoned educator with over 15 years of experience. Before entering academia, Brandy served in Hospital-based leadership and Critical Care Staff nurse roles. Brandy is passionate about equity in nursing education with a focus on individuals with disabilities. Her current research interests include accommodations of nursing students with disabilities in clinical learning environments and breaking down barriers for historically unrepresented individuals to enter the nursing profession. Brandy is also actively engaged in Interprofessional Education development, creating IPE opportunities for faculty and students at Wichita State. Brandy is an active member of Wichita Women for Good and Soroptimist, with the goal to empower women and girls. Brandy is a TeamSTEPPS master trainer. She received the DASIY Award for Extraordinary Nursing Faculty in 2019 at Wichita State University. 
Dr. Sabrina Ali Jamal-Eddine is an Arab-disabled queer woman of color with a PhD in Nursing and an interdisciplinary certificate in Disability Ethics from the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Dr. Jamal-Eddine’s doctoral research explored spoken word poetry as a form of critical narrative pedagogy to educate nursing students about disability, ableism, and disability justice. Dr. Jamal-Eddine now serves as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in UIC’s Department of Disability and Human Development and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities (NOND). During her doctoral program, Sabrina served as a Summer Fellow at a residential National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute at Arizona State University (2023), a summer fellow at Andrew W. Mellon’s National Humanities Without Walls program at University of Michigan (2022), a Summer Research Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute (2021), and an Illinois Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and related Disabilities (LEND) trainee (2019-2020).
Vanessa Cameron works for Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nursing Education & Professional Development. She is also attending George Washington University and progressing towards a PhD in Nursing with an emphasis on ableism in nursing. After becoming disabled in April 2021, Vanessa’s worldview and perspective changed, and a recognition of the ableism present within healthcare and within the culture of nursing was apparent. She has been working since that time to provide educational foundations for nurses about disability and ableism, provide support for fellow disabled nursing colleagues, and advocate for the disabled community within healthcare settings to reduce disparities.
Dr. Lucinda Canty is a certified nurse-midwife, Associate Professor of Nursing, and Director of the Seedworks Health Equity in Nursing Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Columbia University, a master’s degree from Yale University, specializing in nurse-midwifery, and a PhD from the University of Connecticut. Dr. Canty has provided reproductive health care for over 29 years. Her research interests include the prevention of maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity, reducing racial and ethnic health disparities in reproductive health, promoting diversity in nursing, and eliminating racism in nursing and midwifery.
Dr. Lisa Meeks is a distinguished scholar and leader whose unwavering commitment to inclusivity and excellence has significantly influenced the landscape of health professions education and accessibility. She is the founder and executive director of the DocsWithDisabilities Initiative and holds appointments as an Associate Professor in the Departments of Learning Health Sciences and Family Medicine at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Nikia Grayson, DNP, MSN, MPH, MA, CNM, FNP-C, FACNM (she/her) is a trailblazing force in reproductive justice, blending her expertise as a public health activist, anthropologist, and family nurse-midwife to champion the rights and health of underserved communities. Graduating with distinction from Howard University, Nikia holds a bachelor’s degree in communications and a master’s degree in public health. Her academic journey also led her to the University of Memphis, where she earned a master’s in medical anthropology, and the University of Tennessee, where she achieved both a master’s in nursing and a doctorate in nursing practice. Complementing her extensive education, she completed a post-master’s certificate in midwifery at Frontier Nursing University.
Dr. Tia Brown McNair is the Vice President in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Student Success and Executive Director for the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers at the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) in Washington, DC. She oversees both funded projects and AAC&U’s continuing programs on equity, inclusive excellence, high-impact practices, and student success. McNair directs AAC&U’s Summer Institutes on High-Impact Practices and Student Success, and TRHT Campus Centers and serves as the project director for several AAC&U initiatives, including the development of a TRHT-focused campus climate toolkit. She is the lead author of From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education (January 2020) and Becoming a Student-Ready College: A New Culture of Leadership for Student Success (July 2016 and August 2022 Second edition).