Best DHSc Programs, Ranked (2026)

Radford is the value case on this list. The degree is 42 credit hours delivered 100% online across seven sequential semesters, two courses at a time, which is one of the lightest published course loads here and suits someone working full time in a demanding clinical job.

You choose one of three 12-credit concentrations: health administration, community and public health, or higher education. The culmination is an applied scholarly capstone rather than a dissertation. Radford asks for a minimum of three to four years of work experience in a health-related field, which is a more explicit post-professional requirement than most programmes state, and no GRE.

Radford is a public university and its published graduate tuition is among the lowest of any programme on this site. Settle one thing with the department: Radford's own pages give the capstone two different sizes, a 9-credit project across three courses in the programme overview and a 6-credit project in the admissions FAQ. Radford also fills its cohorts, having reached capacity for the fall 2026 intake, so apply early in the cycle rather than late.

Best for

Someone who wants a public-university price, a light two-course-a-term load, and a named concentration.

Think twice if

Radford fills its cohorts, and the school publishes two different capstone sizes.

The clearest structure published by any programme on this site, and the cheapest of the fully online options. Old Dominion's DHSc is 14 courses of exactly three credits, 42 credit hours in total, completed over three years, with every course taught online so you can keep working. Nothing is front-loaded and no term is heavier than the last.

That regularity is worth more than it sounds when you are planning three years around a clinical job and a family: you know in advance what every semester costs in money and hours. Old Dominion positions the degree as facilitating advancement or a career change for people already in health professions, which is the standard post-professional framing.

It is a public university, and its published graduate tuition is the lowest of any enrolling programme here. The gap in published detail is the capstone: Old Dominion says less about what finishes the degree than the programmes it beats on price, so ask whether those 42 hours end in a dissertation or a project before you commit.

Best for

Someone who wants the lowest published price attached to a completely predictable three-year schedule.

Think twice if

The capstone type is not stated on the programme page, and that is the single biggest variable in a doctorate.

Indiana State frames its DHSc as a Healthcare Leadership doctorate and answers the two questions working students ask first, in writing and without hedging: a dissertation is not required, and on-campus visits are not required either. Between them those two facts remove most of what makes a doctorate hard to fit around a job.

The structure is 30 credits of core plus a 7-credit scholarly experience, with a concentration on top. Teaching runs through Indiana State Online on both eight-week and sixteen-week terms with five start dates across the academic year, which is the second loosest calendar on this site and means you can change pace without changing programmes.

It is also a public university, and its published graduate tuition is a fraction of what most private programmes here charge. No other programme here pairs a public price with fully remote delivery, no dissertation and five entry points a year.

Best for

Someone who wants a public-university price and a genuinely flexible calendar, and does not want to write a dissertation.

Think twice if

Indiana State publishes less about the concentration options than the programmes it competes with on price.

The fastest completion published anywhere on this site: four or five terms, 16 to 20 months, part-time and fully online. Chatham gets there honestly rather than by cutting the credential short, at 36 credits, and licensed healthcare professionals can transfer in up to six of those and finish on 30 credit hours.

The capstone is a personalised project addressing a current healthcare issue directly relevant to your own work, and the cohorts are small and interprofessional with close faculty mentoring, which is the sort of claim that matters more in a 20-month programme than a four-year one because there is less time to find your feet.

Chatham starts in the fall term only, so a missed deadline costs a full year in a field where several rivals run four, five or six intakes. Published tuition is mid-to-high among private universities here, though against 36 credits rather than 60 or 70 that arithmetic works out better than the annual rate suggests.

Best for

A licensed clinician who wants the credential finished inside two years and can hit a single annual deadline.

Think twice if

One intake a year, so missing the fall deadline means waiting twelve months.

Thirty-six credits taken part-time across six semesters, online, aimed squarely at clinicians and educators who intend to keep practising. MCPHS says the credit count was cut deliberately, describing the programme as newly updated so students finish faster without dropping core competencies, which is a more candid explanation for a short degree than most schools offer.

The published outcomes are unusually concrete for this field: critically evaluating and disseminating evidence, integrating quality improvement into practice, and analysing national health issues across population demographics. It is interprofessional by design, and the alumni MCPHS profiles come from psychotherapy and dental hygiene rather than a single discipline.

Entry is Fall and Spring only, so a missed deadline costs half a year, and published tuition sits at the upper-middle of the private field. Against 36 credits that is a better deal than the annual rate makes it look, but you should still do that multiplication yourself.

Best for

A practising clinician who wants a short, structured, part-time degree and does not need a named specialisation.

Think twice if

Two intakes a year, and MCPHS publishes less than most about the capstone itself.

Touro runs the loosest calendar of any programme on this site: eight-week sessions with six start dates a year, no residency, and a published typical completion of two years. For a clinician whose workload moves around, that flexibility is worth more than a modest difference in price, because it means a bad quarter costs you weeks rather than a semester.

The structure is 48 credits: 36 of core covering health informatics, epidemiology, biostatistics, health policy and occupational and environmental health, then 6 of proposal development and 6 of the doctoral research project itself. That project ends in an oral defence before a chair and committee, which makes it the most dissertation-shaped of the non-dissertation options here even though Touro does not call it one.

Admission is the strictest on the site in one specific way: a master's plus a cumulative 3.4 GPA, the highest published floor anywhere here, along with two references and a doctoral entrance essay that Touro treats as the first component of your research portfolio rather than a personal statement. There is no GRE or GMAT. Touro also states that the degree leads to no licensure or certification of any kind.

Best for

A working clinician with a strong master's transcript who needs the degree to bend around an unpredictable schedule.

Think twice if

A 3.4 GPA floor rules out a lot of good candidates, and the page contradicts itself on cost, so get the per-credit rate in writing.

Purdue Global states the thing most programmes leave you to infer: you complete every course online with no residency requirement. For a clinician covering shifts, an unambiguous no is worth more than a page that simply omits the question, and several programmes on this list omit it.

The degree ends in a final applied project, and Purdue Global scopes it more tightly than most: a challenge in health care policy, administration, higher education or clinical practice. That is useful if you would rather be handed a frame than invent one. Multiple start dates run through the year, and the published timeline assumes continuous enrolment, so the schedule rewards not taking terms off.

The entry rules are the most specific here about what counts as a health background. A master's with a cumulative 3.0 is the baseline, but if that master's is not in a direct health or health care field, Purdue Global asks for seven years of relevant professional experience instead. Set against that, up to 28 elective credits can transfer in from your master's, which is real money off a degree already priced close to the public options.

Best for

Someone who needs zero travel, has transferable graduate credit, and wants the capstone scoped for them.

Think twice if

If your master's is outside health, seven years of relevant experience is a firm gate rather than a preference.

Bay Path's distinguishing feature is choice. The degree is 48 credits across 16 courses and carries 14 concentration tracks, from Behaviour Analysis and Autism Spectrum Disorders to Health Informatics Management, Clinical and Organizational Ethics and Productive Aging. No other programme on this site comes close to that range, and it means two Bay Path graduates can leave with substantially different degrees.

It is built to be finished. The published timeline is as little as two years, delivery is 100% online in a deliberately small and interactive cohort, and the applied research project is tailored to your own career interests rather than assigned. Intakes are January and September, so the calendar is less forgiving than programmes with four or six starts, but you are never more than a semester from the next door.

Bay Path states the limits of the credential more plainly than anyone else here. The degree leads to no professional licensure or certification, and that holds for the concentrations whose names sound clinical, including Advanced Genetic Counseling and Advanced Occupational Therapy Practice. Those tracks deepen expertise; they do not change what you are licensed to do. Bay Path is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education.

Best for

Someone who already knows the specific area they want to become expert in, and wants a track built for it rather than a general degree.

Think twice if

Two intakes a year and a mid-to-high published tuition, and no concentration here changes your scope of practice.

One of two separate DHSc degrees at Thomas Jefferson, this one in the College of Health Professions and aimed at advancement in healthcare practice, education and policy. It is fully online and built around students who are working healthcare professionals.

What distinguishes it is the elective concentrations, which are unlike anything else on this list: Integrative Nutrition, Digital and Telehealth, and Mind-Body Medicine. Those are genuine specialisms rather than relabelled leadership tracks, and if one of them is the direction you want, no other programme here offers it.

Jefferson publishes little else. There is no credit count, timeline or capstone type on the programme page, so treat the comparison table as incomplete for this row and get those three numbers from admissions before ranking it on price against programmes that do publish them.

Best for

Someone drawn to telehealth, integrative nutrition or mind-body medicine specifically.

Think twice if

No published credits, length or capstone, and it is easily confused with Jefferson's other DHSc.

Liberty runs the second longest degree here at 60 credit hours, which normally argues against a programme, except that Liberty is also the most generous on this site about not making you do all of it. You can transfer in up to half the degree total, and you can apply before your master's is even finished: the cutoff is being within six credit hours of completing a 30 to 48 credit master's, or within nine for a longer one.

Teaching runs in eight-week online courses, with both eight-week and full-semester sub-terms available each semester, so you can run fast or slow inside the same programme without transferring anywhere. The degree ends in a practicum in your own area plus an applied doctoral research project, which makes it the only programme on this site pairing a placement with a project rather than choosing one.

You can take it as a Leadership and Policy specialisation or assemble a general one from a wide elective pool. Admission needs a 3.0. The published tuition is low for a private university, but read that against 60 credits rather than in isolation: what you actually pay here depends more on how much credit you bring with you than on the rate.

Best for

Someone carrying recent, relevant graduate credit who can transfer a large chunk of the degree in.

Think twice if

Sixty credit hours is a lot to fund if you have nothing to transfer.

Forty-eight credit hours delivered online, ending in an applied research project focused on a real-world issue in health science rather than a dissertation. Admission is straightforward and clearly stated: a completed master's with a minimum 3.0 GPA. Published tuition sits in the middle of the private field here.

Lenoir-Rhyne describes the format as combining online learning with the engagement of a traditional residential experience, without saying on the programme page what that involves. That phrasing could mean synchronous sessions, or it could mean travel; the difference matters enormously if you are covering clinical shifts, and it is the first question to put to the department.

Best for

Someone who wants a mid-sized, mid-priced degree with an applied project and a clear entry requirement.

Think twice if

The residential language is unexplained, so confirm exactly what it means before assuming you never travel.

The shortest DHSc in the country. MGH Institute runs 35 credits over five semesters and publishes 20 months to complete, in a programme that is unusually candid about its purpose: the outcomes it lists open by promising to enhance your skills without the focus on academic research. The capstone is an Innovation Project you apply at your own place of employment, developed across all five semesters rather than compressed into a final term.

The affiliation is the other half of the pitch. MGH Institute is part of the Mass General Brigham system, and it sells access to that network as the thing you are buying alongside the credential. Teaching is online with a weekly live session, which MGH recommends but does not require, and there is one on-site visit at the very end timed to commencement.

Entry needs both a bachelor's and a master's from a regionally accredited institution, a firmer requirement than several programmes here state, and there is no GRE. MGH Institute also carries the highest published graduate tuition of any university on this site, so the shortest degree here is not the cheapest.

Best for

Someone who wants the fastest credible route to the credential and values the Mass General Brigham connection.

Think twice if

The highest published tuition on the site, and only two entry points a year, summer or fall.

Drexel houses its Doctor of Health Science in the College of Nursing and Health Professions and publishes a three to five year window, the widest range of any programme here. Beyond that it publishes very little: no credit count, no capstone type, no admission requirements on the programme page.

There is also more than one Drexel listing for this degree, including a separate online campus with its own page, and they do not obviously describe the same offering. Before comparing Drexel with anything else on this list, establish which version you would be enrolling in, what it costs, how many credits it runs to and what finishes it. This entry is short because Drexel's published material is, and padding it would mean inventing the answers.

Best for

Someone who wants a large, well-known health professions faculty and is willing to get the details by phone.

Think twice if

Almost nothing about structure or cost is published, and the degree is listed at more than one address.

Arcadia is the only programme here with an explicit subject commitment rather than a general one. The curriculum rests on a required foundation in population health and health equity, and the applied doctoral project is tied to a real problem in a healthcare organisation or community programme. If you want a DHSc that points somewhere specific, this is it.

Delivery is asynchronous online with synchronous advising touchpoints, which is a more precise description of the format than most schools give, and concentration coursework lets you shape the path within that frame. Entry is broader than the clinical-licence programmes: Arcadia asks for a graduate degree or academic and professional preparation appropriate for doctoral study, with proof of professional experience, certification or licensure where applicable.

Arcadia publishes little about credits, length or start dates, so the comparison table is incomplete for this row and you will need those numbers from admissions. Its own pages also describe the capstone as both an applied doctoral project and an applied dissertation, which are not the same commitment.

Best for

Someone whose interest is population health and health equity rather than running a department.

Think twice if

No published credit count or timeline, and inconsistent language about what the capstone actually is.

Nova Southeastern publishes enough detail to plan from rather than guess at. The degree is a minimum of 46 credit hours, split 42 didactic and 4 experiential, and Nova spells out the pace both ways. One course a term takes about three and a half years; two courses a term brings it in at just over two. Everything must be finished within seven years.

There is no dissertation, and Nova is direct that it has been replaced by an internship or practicum, so four of those credits are spent in a workplace rather than in a library. Four concentrations, Advanced Anesthesiology, Education in Health Care, Global Health and Telehealth, are narrower and more vocational than the general tracks most programmes offer. Delivery is online with one week-long institute you attend twice across the degree, which is a real but small travel cost.

Entry is genuinely post-professional and Nova defines that carefully: a master's, a cumulative 3.0 in it, and either recognised professional practice in a health occupation or five years of progressively responsible healthcare administration. No GRE. Its own admissions page notes that past graduates have included a hospital chief executive and an assistant Surgeon General, which tells you the seniority of the room you would be joining.

Best for

Someone who wants a specialised concentration and enough published detail to plan three years around before applying.

Think twice if

The one-week institute is attended twice, so this is not a programme you can complete without ever travelling.

Pacific's DHSc is the most narrowly targeted admission on this site, and deliberately so: it asks for a master's or doctoral degree from an accredited clinical health science programme, plus a cumulative 3.0 across all your post-secondary coursework and an explanation of how the degree aligns with your career goals. That aims it at practising clinicians and screens out administrators arriving from the management side.

It runs online through the School of Health Sciences, with technical standards written for remote study, and treats six credits a term as a full-time load. Up to nine units of advanced placement credit can be applied if you have relevant graduate coursework already, which is a modest but real saving.

Published tuition is high, and Pacific says less than most here about credits, length and capstone, so the two headline questions, what it costs in total and what finishes it, both need answering by the school before this can be compared properly against the rest of the field.

Best for

A licensed clinician with a clinical health science master's who wants a programme built for that background.

Think twice if

High published tuition and little published structure, and the clinical-degree entry rule excludes many otherwise strong candidates.

Fifty-four credit hours over three years, delivered entirely online in accelerated eight-week terms, so the calendar moves faster than the credit count suggests. Campbell answers the campus question outright rather than leaving it implied: no, the DHSc is a 100% online programme.

The degree ends in a capstone research project built around your own professional interests and concentration rather than a dissertation, and Campbell describes the programme as interdisciplinary and post-professional, which is borne out by the entry expectation that you already hold a health credential. Campbell notes it was the first programme of its kind in North Carolina.

Intake is the constraint: classes start in the fall and applications close in mid-July, with anything later rolled to the following year. At 54 credits it is toward the long end of this field, and published tuition is mid-range for a private university, so it is neither the quick option nor the cheap one.

Best for

Someone who wants a longer, more substantial online degree in short eight-week bursts.

Think twice if

One intake a year with a hard July deadline, and 54 credits to fund.

The programme on this list for someone who actually wants the research training. Bridgeport ends in a genuine dissertation with a committee advisor, and it is unusually flexible about what satisfies it: original research, a literature review, a meta-analysis or a systematic review all qualify. For a clinician who wants to publish rather than to lead, that is a materially different offer from an applied project.

All coursework is online across three start dates a year, spring, fall and summer, and Bridgeport publishes just over three years to finish. You choose one of three concentrations: clinician, nutrition or education. Bridgeport frames the outcome around public health influence, describing graduates affecting policy at local, state and federal level.

The programme is not open to international students, which no other programme on this site publishes. And a dissertation is the part of a doctorate most likely to run past its advertised length, so treat three years as a floor rather than a plan.

Best for

Someone who wants a real dissertation and a committee, delivered online, without paying research-university prices.

Think twice if

Not open to international students, and a dissertation rarely finishes on the advertised schedule.

If you already hold a master's, New Haven prices the degree at 45 credit hours, and the entry rule is the most open of any programme here: the master's can be in any discipline. For a candidate arriving from management, education or the sciences rather than from a clinical licence, that matters more than a few thousand dollars of tuition difference, because several programmes on this list would screen them out on background alone.

The delivery is where you need to read carefully. The degree is taught online, but it opens with a required two-day on-campus residency on a weekend in late August, and the residency carries course credit rather than being an optional welcome event. Budget flights and a hotel; it is not a large time cost, but it is a real one and it never appears in a tuition comparison.

New Haven's published tuition is toward the top of this field, which is the main argument against it given that the programme publishes less than average about its capstone and concentrations.

Best for

Someone with a master's in a non-clinical discipline who would be screened out elsewhere.

Think twice if

A required on-campus residency and a high published tuition, with limited detail on what finishes the degree.

A.T. Still awards more DHSc degrees a year than any other programme still enrolling, and it is the most substantial version of this degree on the list: 70 credit hours, or 65 if you take the Research Methods concentration, run over three to four years. If you want the DHSc that most resembles a full doctoral education rather than a credential, this is the end of the field to start from.

The structure is unusually explicit about what it is not. ATSU prints no dissertation required next to the credit count and replaces it with an Applied Research Project, and its own page frames the degree against a PhD in those terms: the DHSc gives you the skills to apply, translate and disseminate research into practice, where a PhD trains you to produce it. Four concentrations and four start dates a year sit on top of that, and the specialty concentrations are also sold as standalone 12-credit certificates, so you can test the water before committing.

Admission is the most open here. ATSU asks for an accredited master's or higher and a cumulative GPA of 2.5, which is the lowest published floor of any programme on this site, at a school accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. The counterweight is that ATSU publishes no comparable tuition figure, so of everything on this page it is the one where you most need to ask the school directly what 70 credits will cost you.

Best for

Someone who wants the fullest version of the degree, four entry points a year, and a route in that does not hinge on a decade-old transcript.

Think twice if

It is the longest programme on the site, and the only one where you cannot compare the price against the others from published figures.

The traditional option, and the cheapest thing on this site. East Stroudsburg is a public university and its published graduate tuition is a fraction of the private online field, attached to a degree that runs nine terms and finishes with a full dissertation guided by programme faculty.

There are two concentrations, Health Management and Administration or Advanced Research Administration, and the school describes the degree explicitly as post-professional: built for people who already hold a credential and a job in health care and intend to keep both.

What you trade for the price is flexibility. This is the one programme in Pennsylvania not delivered online, and the only campus-based DHSc we have verified anywhere. If you can reach the campus and you want a dissertation rather than a project, nothing else here comes close on cost. If you cannot, the price is irrelevant.

Best for

Someone within reach of the campus who wants a dissertation at a public-university price.

Think twice if

Campus-based and nine terms long, so it demands more of your calendar than anything else on this list.

The most conventionally academic programme on the list. UIndy runs three years front-loaded at 21 credit hours in the first year, then 15, then a final 3 while you finish the dissertation, and the curriculum names the components plainly: research skills development, a dissertation proposal course, then the dissertation itself.

Twenty-one credit hours in year one alongside a full-time clinical job is a heavier first year than any other programme here asks for, and it lands before you have found your rhythm. There is also a required on-campus Dissertation Prep Session in mid-August of the second year, so this is not a programme you complete without travelling.

UIndy sits in the upper-middle of this field on published tuition, several times what the public options charge. The case for it is that you want the dissertation and the structure that comes with it, taught inside a College of Health Sciences with established therapy and nursing doctorates alongside. The case against is that you can get a project-based DHSc for a fraction of the money and none of the travel.

Best for

Someone who specifically wants a dissertation and a conventional doctoral sequence rather than an applied project.

Think twice if

A heavy first year, a required campus session, and a price several times the public alternatives.

Jefferson's second DHSc, and a genuinely different degree rather than a variant: Population Health Leadership, run out of the College of Population Health rather than the College of Health Professions. Choose between the two by the unit you want to work on. A department or a service line points at the other one; a population points here.

It is a three-year cohort-based programme combining asynchronous online content with intensives, and the cohort is deliberately small and interactive. Uniquely on this list, the capstone is a dissertation built on a critical business priority, which is an unusual framing: research output judged by whether it delivers organisational value rather than by contribution to the literature alone.

If population-level work is what draws you, read our comparison of the DHSc and the DrPH before choosing either, because that is the closer decision than the one between Jefferson's two degrees.

Best for

Someone aiming at population health leadership who wants a dissertation tied to a real organisational priority.

Think twice if

Cohort-based with intensives, so less schedule flexibility than a fully asynchronous programme, and no published credit count.