Delaware State University Department of Nursing

Delaware State University sits in Dover on land that has been part of the institution since 1891, when Delaware's General Assembly chartered it under the second Morrill Act as a land-grant college for Black students. The Department of Nursing inside that university is younger. It opened in 1975, built by Hattie Dabney Mishoe, a registered nurse and the wife of DSU's seventh president Dr. Luna I. Mishoe, who asked her to translate her hospital experience into a baccalaureate program at what was then Delaware State College. Fifty years later, the department occupies the building named in her honor at 300 South New Street, the former Wesley College campus that DSU acquired in 2021 and folded into its new Wesley College of Health and Behavioral Sciences.

The undergraduate route is a four-year Bachelor of Science in Nursing. The first two years are pre-professional. Students complete five science prerequisites (Anatomy and Physiology I and II, Microbiology, Pathophysiology, Pharmacology) and earn a minimum grade of B in each. They sit the ATI TEAS BSN exam and must score at the Advanced level on the total composite. A 3.0 cumulative GPA is the floor. Applications to the professional phase are due by the end of the spring semester of sophomore year, and the department does not accept late submissions. When applicant numbers exceed seats, ranking is broken by highest TEAS percentile, so the test matters even after the cutoff.

Once admitted, students move into two clinical years that combine bedside rotations with simulation. The department runs a clinical simulation laboratory inside Mishoe Hall with electronic medication carts and computerized monitors, and in December 2023 the Longwood Foundation awarded DSU $1.75 million to add a second simulation lab plus a rehabilitation center on the same campus. Clinical placements happen across the tri-state area in hospitals, long-term care facilities, clinics, and community health sites. DSU is also a member of the Delaware Health Sciences Alliance, the state coalition that includes ChristianaCare, Bayhealth, Beebe Healthcare, and Nemours, but the department does not publish a named hospital roster, so the specific assignment a student receives is set by the clinical coordinator each semester.

The numbers the department publishes on its own site are useful and worth checking against the Delaware Board of Nursing's annual statistics report. For the 2024 cohort, the first-time NCLEX-RN pass rate was 88.48 percent, up from 83.64 percent in 2023 and 76.12 percent in 2022. Program completion ran 88 percent in 2024, and job placement of graduates has held at 100 percent for four consecutive years (2021 through 2024). The 2023 graduating class produced 75 new nurses, and Dean Gwen Scott-Jones has said more than 550 students were enrolled in pre-nursing or nursing programs after the Wesley acquisition, with a stated goal that half of new graduates be Delaware residents.

For a Black student weighing this program, the financial picture for 2025-2026 reads like this. Delaware residents pay $9,593 in tuition and $1,620 in fees, before any optional student health insurance. Out-of-state students pay $19,584 in tuition with the same $1,620 fee structure. The university's published cost of attendance, which folds in housing, food, books, transportation, and personal expenses, is $34,272 for in-state on-campus and $44,262 for out-of-state on-campus. Off-campus living lifts those figures to $37,798 and $47,788 respectively. Federal aid, the State of Delaware's SEED and Inspire scholarships for residents, and DSU institutional aid all stack against this number, so the sticker price is rarely what families pay.

Graduate study is also on the table without leaving the building. The MSN comes in four concentrations: Family Nurse Practitioner, Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, Nursing Education, and Global Leadership. The RN-to-MSN Dual Degree Pathway is the route for diploma or associate-degree-prepared nurses who want both the BSN and the MSN. Coursework is delivered fully online. Global Leadership and Nursing Education take three years to finish, FNP and PMHNP take four. The expansion into FNP and PMHNP was a deliberate response to Delaware's shortage of primary care and behavioral health providers, particularly in Kent and Sussex counties south of the I-95 corridor.

Accreditation: the baccalaureate program is fully accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN), 3390 Peachtree Road NE, Suite 1400, Atlanta GA 30326, with a status of Continuing Accreditation, and holds full approval from the Delaware Board of Nursing. ACEN-accredited BSN graduates sit the same NCLEX-RN and earn the same RN license as graduates of CCNE-accredited programs. The department is not CCNE-accredited, which matters only if a future graduate program or employer requires CCNE specifically. Most do not.

The application path is straightforward. Apply to the university through https://www.desu.edu/admissions/apply-now, declare a Pre-Nursing major, and then apply to the professional phase of the BSN during the spring semester of sophomore year. The Department of Nursing is reachable at 302-736-2400 or dsudon@desu.edu. Progression questions go to StudentSuccess@desu.edu or 302-736-2302. The program page is https://wchbs.desu.edu/departments/nursing, and the BSN-specific page including admission and progression policies is https://wchbs.desu.edu/departments/nursing/nursing-bs.

Two things are worth saying plainly. First, the TEAS bar is high. A composite score at the Advanced level is the entry ticket, not the goal, and the department caps attempts at three. Students who treat the TEAS like the SAT, plan for it during freshman year, and use the free practice resources in the DSU library tend to clear it without the gatekeeping effect bleeding into their science GPA. Second, the program is growing fast. Enrollment more than doubled after the Wesley acquisition, the Mishoe Hall renovation added classroom and lab space, and the Longwood grant funds a second sim lab. That growth has not yet translated into a CCNE accreditation or a public named-partner clinical roster, both of which would close ambiguity for prospective students. Worth asking about during a campus visit.