Our Legacy
When Mary Breckinridge founded Frontier Nursing University in Hyden, Kentucky, she understood what it meant to be passionate about the care given to patients and the knowledge imparted upon students. Today, as a pioneer in graduate nursing and midwifery education, FNU remains at the forefront of innovation and technology, offering distance education to nurses with an interest in nurse-midwifery, family health and women’s health specialties.
FNU provides advanced educational preparation for nurses who seek to become nurse-midwives, family nurse practitioners, or women’s health care nurse practitioners by providing community-based distance graduate programs leading to a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN), a post-master’s certificate, or a Doctor of Nursing Practice.
FNU proudly claims the following:
- 75 years of experience in graduate nursing and midwifery education
- Oldest and largest continually operating nurse-midwifery education program in the United States
- First family nurse practitioner program in the country
- Pioneered the first midwifery community based distance education program in the United States in 1989
- Nearly 4,000 nurses and midwives have graduated with advanced practice degrees
- Students and alumni represent every U.S. state and many foreign countries
- Named a “Great College to Work For” by The Chronicle of Higher Education
- Ranked by US News & World Report in the
- Top 50 Graduate Schools of Nursing
- Top 15 for Nurse-Midwifery and Nurse Practitioner programs
- Top 50 Best Online Graduate Nursing Programs
