- 50 Lab Hours
- 2 Years to Graduation
- 8:1 Student Ratio
Minimum Requirements to Apply.
A BSN degree from an accredited college or university. Options available for RNs with a BS or BA.
3.0 GPA
Current RN license
No GRE or GMAT required
For the full list admissions criteria and application

Your Education
- Intensive 6 consecutive terms for 2 years.
- 48 credits in total, 650 clinical hours and 50 lab hours total.
- MSN core courses are delivered online, APRN courses hybrid.
- A mixture of online and hands-on in-person learning experiences throughout the program.
- Some clinical rotations might be outside of Albuquerque.
- When you complete this program, you will earn a Master of Science in Nursing.
- Graduates will be eligible to take the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner certifying examination through the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC).
Ensuring Your Success
We are dedicated to your education and providing ongoing support for all of our students. That is why we have Student Success Coordinators. We offer services to individual students and small groups.
Support for Your Education
The majority of our students received some form of financial aid – scholarship, grant, loan, work study or teaching assistant position.
We also offer more than $270,000 in UNM College of Nursing scholarships. Individual scholarship amounts range from $200-$4,000 annually.
Admissions, Tuition & Financial Aid
You Will Be Prepared.
Completing the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Program prepares you to:
- Provide full-scope psychiatric and behavioral health care, utilizing both independent and collaborative approaches, to individuals and families across the life span, including management of acute and chronic mental health problems, health promotion and disease prevention.
- Integrate ethical principles in decision-making and evaluation of psychiatric care related to individuals, families, populations and systems of care.
- Use and articulate evidence-based research as the basis for practice.
- Participate in quality assurance and evaluation of mental health care delivery.
- Empower and motivate individuals and families to be full participants in their own psychiatric and behavioral health care.
- Assume professional responsibility for maintaining and advancing clinical practice competencies.
- Advocate for systems and policies that reduce mental health disparities, facilitate access to behavioral health care, and address cultural diversity and rural populations.
- Identify evidence-based psychopharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions in the management of complex acute and chronic psychiatric disorders in diverse groups of adults and across the life span.
- Evaluate complex acute and chronic mental health advanced practice nursing care using selected outcome measures.
- Describe the complexity of legal and ethical decision-making with adults who have acute and chronic mental health issues in the primary, secondary and tertiary care settings.
PMHNP Program Contact
Psychiatric Mental Health Concentration Coordinator, Clinician Educator, Assistant Professor
Jennifer Schneider, PhD, PMHNP-BC
College of Nursing
Building 228
Room 328
1 University of New Mexico