University of Phoenix PMHNP Program (Psych NP)

Program Tracks Overview

University of Phoenix offers two Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner tracks:

MSN
MSN – PMHNP Bridge

Program Tracks Overview

Program	Est. Tuition	Est. Duration	Credit Hours
MSN	$30.4K	~30 mos	52
MSN Bridge	$34.1K	~34–35 mos	61

University of Phoenix’s defining advantage is cost certainty. The $540 per-credit rate is locked from enrollment through graduation under the university’s Tuition Guarantee, so the $30,420 total is knowable on the day you start. No other Arizona PMHNP program publishes a rate lock.

Both totals include the $195 resource fee charged on every course, which adds roughly $2,340 to the MSN. The program is authorized to enroll students in only 15 states, so confirm eligibility before you apply.

Quick Facts

Feature	Details
Program Types	MSN – PMHNP; MSN – PMHNP Bridge for RNs holding a non-nursing bachelor’s degree
Format	Mostly Online. One 5-day on-campus residency in Phoenix; clinicals local
Clinical Hours	600 minimum supervised hours, including at least 100 in each of four population areas
Clinical Placement	Clinical coordinator supports site and preceptor selection; pre-approved sites available
Population	Across the lifespan — child, adolescent, adult, and geriatric psychiatric care
Distinctive Coursework	Neuropsychiatric Disorders; Neuropsychiatric Pharmacology; two-course advanced assessment sequence
Enrollment Restriction	Authorized in 15 states: AK, AZ, AR, CO, FL, HI, IN, MI, MT, NV, NM, OH, OK, SC, TX
Experience Gate	Three years of full-time work experience within the past 10 years, two as an RN
Required Orientation	PMH/101, a one-week zero-credit course, must be passed within three attempts
RN License Requirements	Active, unencumbered RN license in every state where you hold one; U.S. residence required
Tuition	$540 per credit plus $195 resource fee per course, locked at enrollment
Accreditation	CCNE (nursing programs); Higher Learning Commission (institutional)

Master of Science in Nursing – Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner

The estimated tuition for the MSN/Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program at University of Phoenix is approximately $30,420 (52 credits at $540 per credit, plus a $195 resource fee on each of 12 courses). The program can generally be completed in about 30 months, taking one course at a time in five- to six-week blocks rather than a semester course load.

MSN Curriculum

The 52 credits are packaged into 12 courses rather than the 15 to 18 shorter courses a semester-based program would use. Eleven carry four credits; one carries eight. That packaging is the practical difference between this program and its Arizona peers: you take one course at a time, sequentially, and the resource fee attaches per course, so a shorter course list is also a cheaper one.

Foundation Courses — The three graduate science courses required for national certification appear early, alongside theory and policy coursework that most MSN programs front-load the same way.

Assessment Sequence — Phoenix splits advanced health assessment across two courses instead of one. The second course adds diagnostic interpretation, office procedures, and minor surgical skills, and it is the course that carries the on-campus residency. Building assessment across two terms with a faculty-observed checkpoint in the middle is unusual for an online MSN and is the strongest curricular argument the program makes.

PMHNP Specialty Sequence — Six PMH-coded courses run from diagnostics through population-specific management to a lifespan capstone. The sequence is organized by patient population, not by treatment modality, which mirrors how the clinical hour requirement is structured.

NRP/511 – Advanced Pathophysiology
NRP/507 – Advanced Pharmacology
NRP/531 – Advanced Health Assessment I
NRP/571 – Advanced Health Assessment II and Clinical Procedures
PMH/501 – Neuropsychiatric Disorders
PMH/502 – Neuropsychiatric Pharmacology
PMH/503 – Psychotherapy for Individuals, Families, and Groups
PMH/504 – Psychiatric Management of Adult and Geriatric Patients
PMH/505 – Psychiatric Management of Children and Adolescents
PMH/506 – Psychiatric Mental Healthcare Across the Lifespan

More curriculum details are available here.

MSN Clinical Requirements

600 supervised clinical hours minimum, completed in approved psychiatric settings in your local community.
At least 100 hours in each of four areas: psychotherapy of individuals and groups, adult, geriatric, and pediatric. That locks 400 of the 600 hours to specific populations and leaves roughly 200 flexible.
Approved settings include inpatient, outpatient, integrated primary-and-psychiatric, and addiction service environments.
One 5-day on-campus residency in Phoenix during NRP/571, with faculty-supervised competency checkoffs on clinical and procedural skills.
The residency precedes precepted clinical courses, so skills are verified in person before you see patients under a preceptor.
Placement model: a clinical coordinator supports site and preceptor selection, the university maintains a network of pre-approved sites, and students may propose a site of their own for approval.
Preceptor qualification criteria: Not published by University of Phoenix.

At 600 hours, this is the lowest published clinical total among Arizona PMHNP programs — Grand Canyon publishes 750, Arizona 720, and Arizona State 1,125 at the doctoral level. It clears the 500-hour national floor with room to spare, but it will not be the reason you pick this program. What is unusual is the distribution rule. Most schools publish a total and leave the mix to whatever preceptors you can find, which is how students end up certified for the lifespan having barely treated a child. Phoenix commits to a 100-hour floor in each of four areas, so the composition of your training is defined before you start looking for sites. Pair that with a named clinical coordinator and a pre-approved site network, and the placement picture here is more concrete than at most Arizona schools, where the process is not clearly stated at all.

MSN Admissions

Two gates stand out and should be checked before anything else: a three-year work experience minimum, and a mandatory orientation course you must pass to enroll.

BSN from an institutionally accredited institution with an accredited nursing program
Cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher in degree-level coursework
Grade of C or better in undergraduate science prerequisites, including chemistry, biology, anatomy and physiology, pharmacology, pathophysiology, and microbiology
Three years of full-time work experience within the past 10 years, at least two of them as a practicing RN
Active, unrestricted RN license in every state where you hold nursing licensure
Passing PMH/101, a one-week zero-credit orientation covering program, residency, and clinical expectations, within a maximum of three attempts
Criminal background check completed within one year of enrollment
Signed clinical assurance statement, professional non-academic requirement form, and residency agreement
U.S. residence; the program does not admit international students
No GRE, GMAT, essay, or application fee

Master of Science in Nursing – PMHNP Bridge

The estimated tuition for the PMHNP Bridge pathway at University of Phoenix is approximately $34,080 — the $30,420 MSN plus three bachelor’s-level bridge courses billed at the university’s BSN rate.

University of Phoenix publishes rates for each component but does not publish a combined bridge-plus-MSN total, so this figure is assembled from two of the university’s own published rate schedules. The pathway can generally be completed in about 34 to 35 months, based on adding three six-week courses to the 30-month MSN timeline.

Bridge Curriculum

The Bridge is not a separate PMHNP program. It is a three-course on-ramp for RNs whose bachelor’s degree is in another field, and it feeds into the identical 52-credit PMHNP core. Nine credits of undergraduate nursing coursework replace the BSN that the standard track requires, which is a materially cheaper substitute than earning the BSN first — a full RN-to-BSN at Phoenix runs about $14,000 against roughly $3,700 for the three bridge courses.

Theoretical Development and Conceptual Frameworks
Professional Nursing Leadership Perspectives
Research Outcome Management for the Practicing Nurse
Then the full 52-credit MSN – PMHNP core sequence, unchanged

More detail on the on-ramp is available on the Nursing Bridge Program page.

Bridge Clinical Requirements

Identical to the standard MSN: 600 minimum supervised hours with the same 100-hour floor in each of four population areas
Same 5-day on-campus residency in Phoenix during NRP/571
Same placement model, coordinator support, and pre-approved site network
Bridge courses themselves are didactic and add no clinical hour requirement

Nothing about the clinical requirement is reduced or accelerated for bridge entrants, which is the right design. The bridge closes an academic gap, not a clinical one — these are already licensed, practicing RNs.

Bridge Admissions

Bridge applicants face every standard requirement plus one substitution: a non-nursing bachelor’s degree stands in for the BSN, and the bridge courses must be passed before graduate coursework begins.

Bachelor’s degree or higher in a non-nursing field from an institutionally accredited institution
Cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher in degree-level coursework
Active, unrestricted RN license
Same three-year work experience requirement, including two years as a practicing RN
Same undergraduate science prerequisites at a grade of C or better
Passing PMH/101 orientation
Minimum grade of C in all three bridge courses before advancing to graduate-level PMHNP coursework
Same background check, clinical agreements, and U.S. residence requirements

Tuition

All figures below are estimates derived from University of Phoenix’s published rates. They are not a quote from the university.

MSN – PMHNP: approximately $30,420
MSN – PMHNP Bridge: approximately $34,080

Credit count alone will not tell you what this program costs, because the resource fee is charged per course rather than per credit. Phoenix packages 52 credits into 12 courses — eleven at four credits and one at eight — so the fee is levied 12 times, not 15 or 18. A school with the same credit total spread across more, smaller courses would collect the same fee more often. The relevant unit here is the course, and Phoenix’s course list is short.

MSN – PMHNP derivation:

Graduate nursing practitioner rate: $540 per credit, plus $195 resource fee per course
11 four-credit courses: ($540 × 4) + $195 = $2,355 each, or $25,905
1 eight-credit course: ($540 × 8) + $195 = $4,515
Total: $30,420

MSN – PMHNP Bridge derivation:

Three bachelor’s-level bridge courses at the university’s BSN rate: $350 per credit, plus $170 resource fee per course
Each three-credit course: ($350 × 3) + $170 = $1,220, or $3,660 for all three ⚠️ University of Phoenix publishes this rate for its RN-to-BSN program and identifies the bridge courses as BSN coursework, but does not publish a bridge-specific rate. Confirm the applicable rate with an enrollment representative.
Plus the 52-credit MSN core at $30,420
Total: $34,080

You Should Know

The Tuition Guarantee is a real rate lock, with a condition. Your per-credit rate holds from enrollment to graduation as long as you remain continuously enrolled. Extended breaks can put you on a newer rate, which matters over a 30-month program.
The resource fee is mandatory and not optional courseware. It adds $2,340 to the MSN and $2,850 to the bridge pathway. Every figure on this page already includes it.
Residency travel is not in the tuition estimate. Five days in Phoenix means airfare, lodging, meals, and time off for anyone outside the metro area — realistically several hundred to a few thousand dollars depending on where you live.
Savings levers can move the number meaningfully. Phoenix states that eligible transfer credits and relevant experience can reduce a master’s degree by up to 9 credits and $6,800, and offers separate alumni, military, and employer-alliance rates.

See the University of Phoenix nursing cost overview for current published rates.

The all-in cost sits in the middle of the Arizona field — above Northern Arizona, below Grand Canyon — but it is the only one of the five you can state as a single number before you enroll. The lever you actually control is transfer credit: every eligible credit you bring removes both tuition and a share of a resource fee, and the credit evaluation is free.

Why Choose This PMHNP Program?

Best suited for nurses who need the cost and the calendar nailed down before committing — particularly RNs with a non-nursing bachelor’s degree, and anyone who cannot build a life around a fixed cohort schedule.

A price you can quote back to yourself in year three. Phoenix locks the $540 per-credit rate from enrollment through graduation. Over a 30-month program that is not a marketing detail: Arizona’s public universities reset tuition annually, so a student starting a three-year plan at Arizona State or Northern Arizona is budgeting against rates that do not yet exist. The $30,420 figure here is the full tuition-and-fee number, and it is knowable on day one. No other Arizona PMHNP program offers this.

One course at a time, with no cohort to keep up with. Coursework runs sequentially in five- to six-week blocks rather than as a semester load, and the program is not cohort-locked. For a nurse working full time — which the three-year experience requirement guarantees you are — sequential single-course enrollment is a fundamentally different workload from juggling three concurrent courses. It also means an interruption costs you one course, not a semester and a cohort position.

The lowest campus burden of any Arizona program that requires campus at all. One five-day residency in Phoenix, once, during the second assessment course. Arizona State expects immersions two to three times every semester, which effectively restricts it to Maricopa County residents. Grand Canyon requires two separate trips. Phoenix asks for a single block of five days and nothing else, which is what makes the program workable from Alaska, Michigan, or Ohio.

A defined clinical composition, not just a total. The 600-hour requirement carries a 100-hour floor in psychotherapy, adult, geriatric, and pediatric care. That is a structural commitment most programs do not publish: it means you cannot reach graduation having concentrated your entire practicum in adult outpatient work. A clinical coordinator supports site and preceptor selection against a network of pre-approved sites, with room to propose your own — more placement infrastructure than Northern Arizona or Arizona currently document.

The bridge is a genuine shortcut, and the math shows it. RNs holding a bachelor’s in another field normally need a BSN before any MSN will look at them. Phoenix substitutes three undergraduate nursing courses at roughly $3,700 against about $14,000 for a full RN-to-BSN, and adds four or five months instead of a year or more. Combine that with transfer credit — Phoenix accepts eligible credits from more than 5,000 institutions and states that credits plus relevant experience can save up to 9 credits and $6,800 — and ask for the free credit evaluation before you accept the $34,080 estimate as your number.

Where another program may fit you better. Three things narrow the fit. The program is authorized in only 15 states, so for most of the country the question is settled before cost enters into it. The three-year experience requirement rules out newer RNs who would be admitted at Grand Canyon or Northern Arizona. And if raw practicum volume is your priority, 600 hours is the lowest published total in Arizona — though it is a floor with guaranteed population distribution rather than an unallocated total, and Arizona State’s 1,125 belongs to a doctoral program of a different scale and price. On cost alone, Northern Arizona’s roughly $19,200 MSN undercuts this by a wide margin, but it does so at a rate that can move under you. If you are a working RN in one of the 15 authorized states, you need the total fixed in advance, and you want one campus trip rather than a standing travel obligation, Phoenix is built for exactly that student.

Accreditation

The baccalaureate, master’s, and Doctor of Nursing Practice programs at University of Phoenix are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE), which covers the MSN – PMHNP and the Bridge pathway, since both award the same MSN. The university itself has been institutionally accredited by the Higher Learning Commission continuously since 1978. Curriculum is aligned with standards from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, the American Nurses Credentialing Center, the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties, and Quality & Safety Education for Nurses. University of Phoenix states that graduates are eligible to sit for the ANCC PMHNP certification exam.

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