The Army's nurse anesthesia program is fully funded: tuition is paid, and you draw an Army officer's salary and benefits through the 36-month DNP. In return you serve on active duty for the whole program and five more years after it. Civilian RNs, Guard and Reserve nurses, and active-duty Army nurses can all apply, but an Army agency has to select you first. The class of 2026 passed the National Certification Exam at 80% on the first try, with 18.9% attrition.
Every figure on this page was read off U.S. Army Graduate Program in Anesthesia Nursing's own pages on 28 October 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.
Army USAGPAN CRNA Program: Key Facts
| Degree awarded | Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP), awarded by Baylor University Louise Herrington School of Nursing |
|---|---|
| Program length | 36 months in 2 phases: 52 weeks didactic at MEDCoE, JBSA-Fort Sam Houston, then 97 weeks didactic and clinical at affiliated treatment facilities |
| Credits | 112 |
| Start | June (next intake: 2028 cohort) |
| Application deadline | 2028 cohort: opens November 1, 2026, closes August 1, 2027; official transcripts due July 1, 2027. Required external agency applications close earlier (LTHET for active-duty nurses March 2027, USAREC for civilians/Guard/Reserve June 2027; agency dates subject to change) |
| Minimum ICU experience | 1 year minimum of RN critical care experience, completed within 5 years of the application deadline |
| CCRN | Optional (CCRN or CEN) |
| GRE | Optional; if submitted, within 5 years, combined verbal/quantitative >= 300 and/or analytical writing >= 4.0, each considered independently |
| Minimum GPA | 3.0 BSN/MSN GPA and 3.0 Basic Health Sciences GPA |
| Class / cohort size | Seat count not published; the program has averaged 28 graduates per year over the past ten years. Seats per applicant type vary with yearly Army mission requirements |
| Format | Two phases: 52 weeks didactic at MEDCoE, JBSA-Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, then 97 weeks didactic and clinical at Army, DoD, VA and private-sector treatment facilities |
| Tuition (in-state) | Not published — verify on the program site |
| Tuition (out-of-state) | Not published — verify on the program site |
| Tuition (as published) | Fully funded (tuition is paid); students earn an Army officer's salary and benefits during school. Accepting an offer carries an active-duty service obligation for the program plus 5 years after graduation |
| NCE first-time pass rate | 80% first-time pass rate, class graduating in 2026 (24 of 30) |
| Attrition | 18.9% (7 of 37 students), class graduating in 2026 |
| Employment | 100%, class graduating in 2026 |
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 minimum as an RN in critical care, completed within five years of the application deadline. 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 3.0 minimum on your BSN or MSN, plus a separate 3.0 minimum on the Basic Health Sciences GPA the program calculates from your science courses. Meeting both floors does not guarantee an interview, and the program admits no one it has not interviewed.. 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: Optional. A CCRN or CEN can strengthen your file, but you can apply without one..
GRE: Optional. If you send scores, the program looks for 300 or higher combined verbal and quantitative, or 4.0 or higher in analytical writing, and judges each on its own..
Published prerequisites
- Statistics, undergraduate or graduate, minimum 3 semester credit hours, grade C or higher (required)
- Biochemistry or Organic Chemistry, grade B or higher, within 5 years of the application due date (optional, strengthens the application)
Deadline and Timeline
Applications close opens November 1, 2026 and closes August 1, 2027 for the June 2028 cohort, with official transcripts due July 1. The Army agency application you need first closes earlier. Active-duty nurses apply through the Long-Term Health Education and Training board by March 2027, and civilians, Guard and Reserve nurses apply through an Army medical recruiter by June 2027., and the program starts in June.
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
no tuition. The program is fully funded and pays you as an Army officer while you train. The price is service: active duty for the full program, then five more years as an Army CRNA.
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: 80% first-time for the class of 2026, which is 24 of 30 graduates
Attrition: 18.9% for the class of 2026, which is 7 of 37 students
Employment: 100% for the class of 2026, with every graduate placed in an Army medical facility
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 Army USAGPAN Compares in Texas
Texas has other accredited options, and their requirements are not identical. See all Texas CRNA programs, or start with these:
| Program | City | Degree | Cost | Acceptance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baylor College of Medicine | Houston | DNP | $90,000 | 12% |
| Texas Christian University | Fort Worth | DNAP | $115,000 | 17% |
| Texas Wesleyan University | Fort Worth | DNAP | $115,000 | 19% |
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 U.S. Army Graduate Program in Anesthesia Nursing's own pages on 28 October 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://armydnp.nursing.baylor.edu/usagpan-program
- https://catalog.baylor.edu/graduate-school/affiliated-programs/nursing-anesthesia/anesthesia-nursing-dnp-bsn-dnp-program/
- https://armydnp.nursing.baylor.edu/
- https://armydnp.nursing.baylor.edu/2028-cohort-application-requirements
- https://armydnp.nursing.baylor.edu/usagpan-program/accreditation-outcomes
Programs change requirements and prices between admission cycles. If something here no longer matches the program site, tell us and we will fix it.