Loma Linda is the longest program on this site at 39 months, and at roughly $170,000 in tuition and fees across four program years it is also California's most expensive. Applications run May 1 to July 1 with documents due August 1. One year of critical care is the minimum and the CCRN is preferred rather than required, and the three most recent classes passed the National Certification Exam at an 87% average on the first attempt.
Every figure on this page was read off Loma Linda University's own pages on 22 September 2026. Where the program publishes nothing, this page says so rather than guessing. The National Certification Exam, or NCE, is the exam every graduate has to pass, and a program that publishes its first-time pass rate is handing you the single most useful number it has.
Loma Linda CRNA Program: Key Facts
| Degree awarded | Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) |
|---|---|
| Program length | 39 months |
| Credits | 84 |
| Start | Not published — verify on the program site |
| Application deadline | Application period May 1 - July 1; documents deadline August 1 (cycle year not stated on page) |
| Minimum ICU experience | 1 year (minimum, at time of application) |
| CCRN | Preferred (not required for admission; BLS/ACLS/PALS required before clinical courses) |
| GRE | Not published — verify on the program site |
| Minimum GPA | 3.0 cumulative and nursing coursework; 3.0 science GPA |
| Class / cohort size | Not published — verify on the program site |
| Format | Hybrid distance education (traditional classroom + hybrid distance education delivery) |
| Tuition (in-state) | Not published — verify on the program site |
| Tuition (out-of-state) | Not published — verify on the program site |
| Tuition (as published) | $170,243 in tuition and fees across the four program years (Year 1 $51,219, Year 2 $62,586, Year 3 $36,070, Year 4 $20,368; 2026-27 estimate) |
| NCE first-time pass rate | 3-year average 87% (Class 2024: 93%, Class 2025: 80%, Class 2026: 88%) |
| Attrition | 3-year average 3.66% (Class 2024: 6%, Class 2025: 0%, Class 2026: 5%) |
| Employment | 3-year average 96.33%, within six months of completing the program (Class 2024: 100%, 2025: 89%, 2026: 100%) |
Anything marked “Not published” is genuinely absent from the program's own pages. Programs are not required to publish tuition, cohort size or acceptance rate, and many do not. We would rather leave a gap than fill it with a third-party guess.
Admission Requirements
The critical-care floor is one year, at the time you apply. That is the hard rule, and a file sitting exactly on it is eligible rather than competitive — committees read high-acuity time in a CVICU, SICU, trauma or neuro unit very differently from a monitored floor.
On grades the program asks for a 3.0 minimum in cumulative, nursing and science coursework. Treat that as a screen rather than a target, because admitted classes at doctoral programs usually sit well above the stated floor and science coursework is weighed separately.
CCRN: Preferred, not required for admission. BLS, ACLS and PALS are required before clinical courses..
GRE: not mentioned anywhere on the program's pages.
Published prerequisites
- Current certification in BLS, ACLS, and PALS required before clinical courses begin
Deadline and Timeline
Applications close applications open May 1 and close July 1, with documents due August 1.
Deadlines move year to year, and a doctoral cohort is usually decided nine to twelve months before it starts. Confirm the current cycle on the program site before you plan around this date. Our CRNA application timeline works backwards from a start date through references, shadowing, CCRN and transcripts.
Cost
about $170,243 in tuition and fees across the four program years, as a 2026-27 estimate. This figure includes fees, so it is not directly comparable with a tuition-only total.
Tuition is not the whole number. Fees, health insurance, board-exam and licensure costs, relocation and the lost income of three years out of a staff job all land on the same ledger. Our CRNA school cost guide works through the full picture, and cheapest CRNA programs ranks by published tuition.
Outcomes
First-time NCE pass rate: an 87% first-time average across the three most recent classes
Attrition: a 3.7% three-year average
Employment: a 96% three-year average within six months
These three figures are worth more than any ranking. COA requires accredited programs to publish them, and read together they tell you whether a program gets the people it admits through to a licence. National context: the first-time NCE pass rate was 90.5% in 2025 (NBCRNA), with a five-year average of 86.6%.
How Loma Linda Compares in California
California has other accredited options, and their requirements are not identical. See all California CRNA programs, or start with these:
| Program | City | Degree | Cost | Acceptance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| California State University Fullerton | Fullerton | DNP | $85,000 | 12% |
| National University Fresno | Fresno | DNAP | Varies | N/A |
| Samuel Merritt University | Oakland | DNAP | $145,000 | 18% |
Cost and acceptance in that table are directory figures rather than program-verified ones. "Varies" and "N/A" mean the program publishes neither.
Sources and How We Verified This
Every figure above was read off Loma Linda University's own pages on 22 September 2026. Accreditation status and review dates come from the COA list of accredited programs. We publish no number we could not read at its source.
- https://nursing.llu.edu/programs/certified-registered-nurse-anesthetist-crna
- https://llucatalog.llu.edu/nursing/graduate/dnp/nurse-anesthesia-concentration/
- https://llu.edu/academics/programs/school-nursing/nursing-nurse-anesthesia-dnp
Programs change requirements and prices between admission cycles. If something here no longer matches the program site, tell us and we will fix it.