Colorado on UL Lafayette's state lists: a gap and a clear DNP
Colorado is the one state that UL Lafayette's state authorization page leaves out of every category for the FNP, PMHNP and PMHNP certificate, so plan as if those tracks are unavailable until the university tells you otherwise. The post-MSN DNP is straightforward: Colorado is on its accepted list, and residency hours may be logged where you live. Ask UL Lafayette's online programs office to confirm before applying.
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The state the NP-track lists skip
Every other state lands in one of three NP-track groups on UL Lafayette's page: meets educational requirements, does not meet them, or not accepting because no determination exists. Colorado sits in none. Read that silence as a question to ask, not an invitation, and remember that even a Colorado answer would leave those tracks tied to Louisiana rotations under a Louisiana RN license, as our Louisiana-only clinicals page explains.
| Program | Colorado status | Note |
|---|---|---|
| MSN FNP | Not listed in any category | A gap; confirm with UL Lafayette |
| MSN PMHNP | Not listed in any category | A gap; confirm with UL Lafayette |
| PMHNP Post-Master's Certificate | Not listed in any category | A gap; also needs a Louisiana APRN license |
| MSN in Nursing Education | Not among the eight states | Colorado is not on its list |
| DNP (post-MSN) | Accepted | Residency in Louisiana or at home |
The state authorization guide walks through all of the page's categories.
How Colorado handles students from outside programs
Colorado's Board frames program approval (3 CCR 716-1, Rule 1.2) in terms of entry-level education: the basic course of study a person takes on the way to becoming an RN or LPN. Graduate and APRN programs from elsewhere that send students into Colorado are not addressed there at all. Rules are only part of what a board says, so read the Colorado State Board of Nursing's current guidance through the Division of Professions and Occupations before a residency begins.
The Colorado student permit is a narrow tool. Its audience is people from nontraditional out-of-state programs, the kind without faculty-supervised clinicals, who must gather Colorado clinical hours before licensure. Students in a program like UL Lafayette's are outside that audience.
Practice rules, incentives and Colorado's health systems
Colorado has held compact membership since early 2018, while the APRN Compact remains unenacted there. AANP ranks Colorado as full practice, with a prescribing condition: newly licensed NPs document a 750-hour stretch of mentored experience, arranged with a physician or APRN, to qualify for prescriptive authority.
Colorado's rural and frontier preceptor credit, taken against state income tax by clinicians who teach without pay, grew under HB22-1005 to include RNs and other licensed outpatient staff as well as advanced practice nurses. The bill also confined it to learners enrolled at accredited colleges and universities inside Colorado, which appears to leave out anyone teaching an out-of-state student.
Most Coloradans live along the Front Range, where metro Denver dwarfs Colorado Springs, while Fort Collins-Loveland and Greeley sit to the north. The big systems include UCHealth, the safety-net Denver Health, HCA HealthONE, the Colorado arm of CommonSpirit Health, and Intermountain Health, whose Denver hospitals include Saint Joseph. These names picture the state and are not presented as sites for UL Lafayette students.
The DNP route for Colorado nurses
UL Lafayette's post-MSN DNP is 39 credits with one Fall cohort and a May 1 deadline. Its 420 residency hours across NURS 821, NURS 822 and NURS 823 sit in your specialty area of practice, and UL Lafayette accepts them from Louisiana or from a student's home state. Lafayette sees you twice: at the DNP Orientation Intensive and at your closing Synthesis Project presentation.
If you later move to Louisiana, the MSN tracks become worth a fresh look, and a Colorado multistate license is a useful starting point for UL Lafayette's RN license rules.
Why Colorado nurses start with us
Our work is built around UL Lafayette's own clinical rules, including the spots where its pages leave gaps. However your placement comes together on UL Lafayette's side, we match you with a residency mentor and site in your specialty that fit its rules, and we have the agency and mentor paperwork finished well ahead of NURS 821. Send your specialty and city through the contact form.
Questions UL Lafayette students ask
Is Colorado accepted for UL Lafayette's online FNP?
UL Lafayette's state authorization page does not place Colorado in any category for the FNP, PMHNP or PMHNP certificate. Treat those tracks as closed to Colorado residents unless UL Lafayette's online programs office says otherwise. In any case, their clinical rotations happen only in Louisiana with a Louisiana RN license.
Could Colorado's student permit cover DNP hours in Colorado?
The permit exists for people from outside nontraditional programs, those with no faculty-supervised clinicals, who still need Colorado hours before licensure. A practicing Colorado NP in a post-MSN DNP is in a different position. Ask the DNP Coordinator and the Colorado State Board of Nursing whether any filing applies to your residency.
Is Colorado's 750-hour mentorship rule linked to UL Lafayette's 750 FNP hours?
No. Colorado's 750 hours are mentored post-licensure experience that a new NP documents to earn prescriptive authority. UL Lafayette's 2026-27 catalog, separately, sets at least 750 precepted clinical hours for the MSN FNP, a figure older pages gave as 600. The numbers match by coincidence; see NP clinical hours.
What license does the DNP ask of a Colorado applicant?
Every DNP applicant brings an unencumbered RN license issued in the United States, and post-MSN applicants also bring an unencumbered U.S. APRN nurse practitioner license. The catalog adds a master's in an advanced specialty, leadership or education, a 3.3 GPA on master's coursework, three recommendations and a virtual interview.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-27
We check these pages against UL Lafayette's 2026-27 catalog, its online program and state authorization pages, the ICMSN student handbook and Louisiana's nursing rules. Your course faculty and your plan of study have the final word.
Whether UL Lafayette helps or you start alone, we find the preceptor.
Tell us your UL Lafayette program, the practicum coming up and the Louisiana town you train near. We look for preceptors and sites that fit the course and gather the license, CV and agency details that must be on file before your first clinical day.
- Preceptors who meet Louisiana's rules: an active Louisiana license, most hours with an APRN in your population focus
- The preceptor's CV, the agency details and your letter of agreement items gathered early
- Across Acadiana and the rest of Louisiana, plus DNP residencies in your home state
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