Psychiatric-mental health is one of the fastest-growing nurse practitioner education specialties in the AANP’s 2015–2024 student snapshot. In 2024, psych-mental health programs accounted for about 17% of NP enrollment and about 20% of NP graduations. The AANP’s 2024 practice and compensation reports also show how certification, clinical focus, salary, and practice setting vary for this group.
Contents
- Education and enrollment
- Graduation trends
- Certification and clinical focus
- Psychiatric NP compensation
- Private-practice compensation
- Employment outlook
Education and enrollment
The AANP NP Student Snapshot 2015–2024 describes the distribution of NP students by program focus in 2024. Psych-mental health represented about 17% of enrolled NP students. That made it smaller than primary care, which represented about 73%, but larger than acute care, at about 10%.
| 2024 NP student program focus | Share of students |
|---|---|
| Primary care | About 73% |
| Psych-mental health | About 17% |
| Acute care | About 10% |
These figures describe enrollment, not the total number of practicing psychiatric nurse practitioners. They are also rounded shares, so they should be read as an overview of the student population rather than as a count of individual students.
The ten-year change is especially notable for psych-mental health programs. From the earlier period covered by the AANP snapshot to 2024, psych-mental health enrollment grew 616% in MSN programs, 774% in post-MSN programs, and 328% in DNP programs. Those percentages measure growth within each degree pathway; they do not mean that every pathway began with the same number of students.
For context, the 2024 snapshot placed psych-mental health between primary care and acute care in enrollment share. Its 17% share was about one-fourth of the primary-care share and higher than the acute-care share, but the AANP figures do not provide a headcount in the supplied report summary.
Graduation trends
Graduation figures in the AANP NP Student Snapshot 2015–2024 show a similar, but not identical, pattern. In 2024, about 20% of NP graduates came from psych-mental health programs. Primary care accounted for about 71% of graduates, while acute care accounted for about 9%.
| 2024 NP graduate program focus | Share of graduates |
|---|---|
| Primary care | About 71% |
| Psych-mental health | About 20% |
| Acute care | About 9% |
Psych-mental health’s graduation share was therefore about three percentage points higher than its enrollment share in the same 2024 snapshot. Because both values are rounded, the difference should not be treated as a precise measurement of conversion from enrollment to graduation.
The ten-year graduation changes were substantial across all three psych-mental health degree pathways reported by the AANP. MSN psych-mental health graduations grew 744%. Post-MSN psych-mental health graduations grew 1,269%, and DNP psych-mental health graduations grew 577%.
The post-MSN percentage is the largest of the three reported growth figures. It describes change over the AANP snapshot period, not a forecast. The snapshot also does not establish why the pathways grew at different rates, so the figures should be used to describe scale and direction rather than to assign a cause.
Certification and clinical focus
The AANP 2024 Nurse Practitioner Practice Report provides a view of how NPs identify their credentials and work focus. In that report, 7.1% of NPs held a psychiatric/mental health certification. Another 0.4% held pediatric-primary care mental health certification, while 92.8% reported no advanced certification.
Clinical focus was narrower than the overall certification picture: 5.9% of NPs listed psychiatry/mental health as their top clinical focus. Certification and clinical focus are different measures. A certification figure describes a credential category, while a top clinical focus describes how respondents characterized their primary area of practice.
The report’s percentages should not be added together. The supplied figures refer to separate report fields, and the broad “no advanced certification” category is not a direct inverse measure of psychiatric practice. They are best read as complementary indicators of the profession’s composition.
Psychiatric NP compensation
The AANP 2024 Nurse Practitioner Compensation Report included 321 respondents in its psychiatry/mental health clinical-focus salary table. For this group, the reported base salary distribution ranged from $103,000 at the 10th percentile to $198,000 at the 90th percentile. The median was $140,000, and the mean was $147,898.
| Psychiatry/mental health NPs, clinical-focus table | Base salary | Hourly pay |
|---|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $103,000 | $55.00 |
| 25th percentile | $120,000 | $66.00 |
| Median | $140,000 | $81.00 |
| 75th percentile | $167,000 | $109.50 |
| 90th percentile | $198,000 | $133.00 |
| Mean or average | $147,898 | $89.25 |
The same report listed total compensation for this clinical-focus group at $103,000 at the 10th percentile, $120,000 at the 25th percentile, $140,000 at the median, $167,000 at the 75th percentile, and $198,000 at the 90th percentile. Mean total compensation was $147,898.
In the supplied AANP table, the base-salary and total-compensation figures are identical at each listed percentile for this group. That is how the report values are presented here; it should not be taken as a general rule that base salary and total compensation are always equal.
Hourly figures ranged from $55.00 at the 10th percentile to $133.00 at the 90th percentile. The 25th percentile was $66.00, the median was $81.00, the 75th percentile was $109.50, and the average was $89.25. Percentiles show the distribution among respondents; they are not guarantees for a particular job or location.
Private-practice compensation
The AANP 2024 compensation report also separated psychiatry/mental health NPs by private-practice setting. Private physician practice had 63 respondents. The median base salary was $135,000, and the mean base salary was $131,524. Reported total compensation was $96,000 at the 10th percentile, $113,000 at the 25th percentile, $135,000 at the median, $150,000 at the 75th percentile, and $166,000 at the 90th percentile. Mean total compensation was $131,524.
Private NP practice had 138 respondents. The reported base-salary figures included $54,000 at the 10th percentile, a median of $110,000, and a mean of $125,078. The supplied table also reported total compensation at $208,000 at the 90th percentile and mean total compensation of $125,078.
These private-practice results are based on smaller respondent groups than the 321-person clinical-focus table. The physician-practice and NP-practice categories should therefore be compared as report-specific respondent groups, not as a complete census of private psychiatric NP jobs.
The two private settings also show why a single salary number can be misleading. The physician-practice median base salary was $135,000, compared with a $110,000 median base salary in private NP practice. At the same time, the reported private NP practice 90th-percentile total compensation was $208,000, above the private physician-practice 90th percentile of $166,000. Different distributions and respondent counts can produce different patterns across percentiles.
Employment outlook
The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook projects 40% growth for nurse practitioner employment from 2024 to 2034. The BLS Employment Projections table lists 320.4 thousand nurse practitioner jobs in 2024 and 448.8 thousand in 2034, a projected numeric increase of 128.4 thousand jobs.
The BLS also projects 29.5 thousand annual openings for nurse practitioners from 2024 to 2034. Annual openings are not the same as net new jobs: the projected numeric change measures the increase in employment, while annual openings cover opportunities arising during the projection period.
For pay context, the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook lists 2024 median pay for nurse practitioners at $129,210. In May 2024, the lowest-paid 10% earned less than $98,520, while the highest-paid 10% earned more than $217,270. These BLS figures cover nurse practitioners as an occupation and are not limited to psychiatric/mental health NPs.
The BLS Employment Projections table classifies a master’s degree as the entry-level education for nurse practitioners. It lists no required work experience in a related occupation and no on-the-job training requirement for entry. Those are occupational entry classifications, not a statement that psychiatric NP practice requires no clinical preparation or credentialing beyond the BLS categories.
Taken together, the AANP and BLS figures describe a growing specialty within a growing occupation. The AANP data show expanding psych-mental health education pathways and a distinct compensation distribution, while the BLS data provide the broader nurse practitioner employment and pay context for 2024–2034.