University of the District of Columbia Nursing Programs (UDC Community College AASN / Practical Nursing Certificate and CAUSES RN to BSN)

The University of the District of Columbia is the only public Historically Black College or University in Washington, DC, and one of only two land-grant HBCUs in the mid-Atlantic, the other being the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. UDC was created in 1976 by merging three predecessor institutions, and its nursing programs are older than the merger itself. Associate degree nursing began at Washington Technical Institute in 1966; baccalaureate nursing began at Federal City College in 1968. Almost six decades on, UDC is still graduating Black nurses into the same DC hospitals that have shaped public health in the District since the civil rights era.

UDC runs three nursing pathways, and prospective students should know up front that none of them is a traditional pre-licensure BSN. If you want to enter UDC with no nursing background and leave with a BSN in four years, UDC is not structured for that. What UDC does offer is a layered pipeline that lets a student start as a Licensed Practical Nurse, bridge to a Registered Nurse with an Associate of Applied Science in Nursing, and then complete a Bachelor of Science in Nursing through a fully designed online RN to BSN, all under one university and one ACEN accreditation umbrella.

The Practical Nursing Certificate program and the Associate of Applied Science in Nursing program are both based at the UDC Community College at 5171 South Dakota Avenue NE, the Bertie Backus campus in Ward 5. Both are accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing and approved by the DC Board of Nursing. The PN Certificate holds Initial Accreditation; the AASN holds Continuing Accreditation. Both programs admit one cohort a year for fall start. For the Fall 2026 cohort, applications opened January 23, 2026 and closed February 27, 2026 at 5 p.m., with the ATI TEAS exam required by the same deadline. AASN applicants need a 2.8 GPA and a passing TEAS score; PN applicants also need a 2.8 cumulative GPA and a TEAS proficient score of at least 58.7. Both programs require Anatomy and Physiology I and II with a minimum B, two professional recommendation letters, and a clean background check through CastleBranch. Dr. Susie Cato is the Program Director and the contact for both, at scato@udc.edu or 202-274-5914.

The RN to BSN completion program is housed on the main Van Ness campus at 4200 Connecticut Avenue NW, inside the College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability, and Environmental Sciences. It is a 120-credit degree that working RNs can complete in 18 months of full-time study, delivered in 8-week sessions with seven online theory courses and three face-to-face clinical practicums. It holds an 8-year ACEN accreditation through 2031. Applicants need an active unencumbered RN license, a 2.7 cumulative GPA, and 72 prerequisite credits, and they apply through NursingCAS. F-1 student visa holders are not eligible. The general inbox is causes@udc.edu and the office line is 202-274-7124.

Affordability is the strongest single argument for UDC nursing. For 2025-2026, DC resident undergraduate tuition is $324 per credit hour, the DC Metropolitan rate for residents of Prince George's County or Montgomery County in Maryland or Alexandria, Arlington, or Fairfax County in Virginia is $374 per credit hour, and the non-resident rate is $680 per credit hour. University fees add $430 a year. A DC resident completing the AASN at roughly 60 credits is looking at under $20,000 in tuition over the full program. UDC publishes a full undergraduate cost of attendance for 2024-2025 of $32,449 for residents, $33,649 for metropolitan students, and $40,993 for non-residents, with the bulk of that being living expenses, not tuition. Students living with parents see roughly a 50 percent reduction in the housing line.

Outcomes deserve direct treatment. The DC Department of Health publishes annual NCLEX pass rates by program, and the 2024 report shows UDC's Associate Degree Nursing program with a 73.63 percent first-time NCLEX-RN pass rate for the calendar year. The DC Board of Nursing benchmark is 80 percent. A 2022 UDC news release referenced an 88 percent first-time NCLEX-RN pass rate for an earlier cohort, so the program has performed well historically, but the most recent verifiable rate is below the DC benchmark. Prospective students should ask the nursing office directly about cohort-by-cohort trends and the remediation supports in place for the next group.

Class sizes are small by design. UDC describes lecture cohorts of 16 to 25 students and clinical, simulation, and lab groups of around 8. Students get high-fidelity manikin simulation and virtual reality clinical scenarios on top of clinical placements in DC area facilities. UDC does not publish a current named list of clinical partner hospitals on its public pages, and that is one of the questions a serious applicant should bring to a campus visit. UDC sits inside the same clinical labor market as Howard University Hospital, MedStar Washington Hospital Center, MedStar Georgetown, George Washington University Hospital, and Children's National Hospital, and many UDC graduates work in those systems, but the specific clinical affiliation agreements for each cohort are coordinated through the nursing office rather than published online.

For a Black student from DC, the case for UDC nursing is concrete. It is a public HBCU, it is affordable at resident rates that are a fraction of what private DC universities charge, the cohorts are small, the faculty includes leaders with national accreditation experience, and the pipeline runs from LPN to BSN under one roof. The candid counterpoint is the recent NCLEX rate, the absence of a traditional pre-licensure BSN, and the need to push the program directly for current clinical placement information. Both sides of that picture belong in the decision.