UCCS RN to BSN and Dual Enrollment: the online route to a BSN
UCCS's RN to BSN lets a working registered nurse finish a bachelor's degree online, one or two 8-week nursing courses at a time, and its Dual Enrollment option lets associate degree students begin before they graduate. Just one course carries clinical contact hours, NURS 4450 Public Health Nursing, and the community site for it is one you secure and UCCS faculty approve.
Secure your NURS 4450 site
Tell us your state and target semester, and your placement advisor starts looking for a community site.
How the 126 credits come together
The catalog builds the degree from 55 general education credits, the upper-division nursing courses below and 38 Colorado articulation credits for RNs. How much general education you still owe depends on your earlier college record, so ask an advisor for your own evaluation before you map out semesters.
| Course | Title | Credits | Clinical component |
|---|---|---|---|
NURS 3010 | Pathophysiology (BIO 216 from a Colorado community college can substitute) | 3 | None |
NURS 3040 | Professional Nursing Role Development and Reflective Practice | 3 | None |
NURS 3070 | Introduction to Informatics | 3 | None |
NURS 3080 | Quality and Safety | 3 | None |
NURS 4015 | Nursing Research and Evidence-Based Practice | 3 | None |
NURS 4350 | Nursing Leadership | 3 | None |
NURS 4450 | Public Health Nursing | 6 | Contact hours at a community site |
NURS 4480 | Capstone, Innovation, and Leadership (quality-improvement project) | 3 | None stated; RN license required |
| Electives | NURS, HPNU or HSCI courses | 6 | Varies |
Only NURS 4450 sends you into the field. The capstone, NURS 4480, is a quality-improvement project that requires an active RN license but lists no clinical hours.
Pace, start dates and Dual Enrollment
Every required nursing course runs in an 8-week block, and the FAQ says classes start every eight weeks, with rolling admission. The program is part-time by design. Taking two 8-week courses a semester, students finish in about 1 to 1.5 years; taking one, in about 1.5 to 2.5 years.
Dual Enrollment is for students still in an associate degree nursing program, who begin BSN courses before earning their ADN. License timing differs by state. A Colorado Dual Enrollment student can take NURS 4450 before licensure, according to the course checklist, but must have passed the NCLEX and hold a license before NURS 4480. Students outside Colorado need an active RN license in their own state before NURS 4450 begins.
Plan the capstone and public health courses around those two gates. They sit near the end of the sequence, and a late NCLEX date can hold up graduation even when every other course is complete.
The 21 states
The RN to BSN has its own, wider state list, and UCCS marks it as applying only to the RN to BSN programs. Residents of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming may enroll.
Seven of those states, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia, are missing from the 14-state list for UCCS's graduate NP programs. If you live in one of them and hope to continue into a UCCS MSN or DNP later, that difference matters now. The approved states page compares the lists side by side.
Being eligible for the RN to BSN does not make you eligible for UCCS's NP programs: seven RN to BSN states are absent from the graduate list.
NURS 4450: the one clinical course
NURS 4450 is a 6-credit contact hour course completed at a community site of your choice that UCCS faculty judge appropriate. Your own unit of employment and inpatient acute units are ruled out, and UCCS does not publish the number of contact hours. A handful of Colorado Springs agencies, including The Lane Center, Nurse Family Partnership, El Paso County Health Department and UCHealth, are reserved through the course faculty instead of arranged by students.
Enrollment runs on a checklist with fixed dates (spring entry by October 1, summer by March 1, fall by May 1), myClinicalExchange registration, a background check and drug screen through CastleBranch, and a site sheet naming the site, your mentor and whoever holds legal authority to sign an agreement. The NURS 4450 guide walks through each item.
UCCS's sources disagree on two small points. The catalog names the course Public Health Nursing and lists the public health clinical as an exception to online delivery, while the FAQ calls the program fully online, including NURS 4450, and other college pages use Community Health or Population Health.
Grades and what comes after the BSN
A C (74%) is the floor in every required nursing course. The first failure not involving safety or conduct triggers an advising plan. A second failure, or one involving safety or conduct, leads to dismissal, which can be appealed once to the college's Admissions and Progressions Committee.
If an NP role is your next goal, UCCS's MSN and BSN to DNP accept bachelor's-prepared RNs who meet their admission rules and live in one of the 14 graduate states. An associate degree nurse can instead go straight toward the MSN through the RN to MSN bridge, which asks for 5,000 hours of documented RN practice among other requirements; a student who does not pass that bridge may move to the RN to BSN with its 6 credits counted as electives.
On the graduate side the clinical search is yours in every course, so the site-finding skills NURS 4450 builds carry forward.
Why RN to BSN students choose us
The NURS 4450 site is easy to underestimate. It has to suit a public health course, fall outside your own unit and inpatient acute care, win faculty approval, and supply both a mentor and someone with authority to sign an agreement, all before a checklist deadline that arrives months ahead of the course. We handle that search from start to finish, looking across health departments, community clinics, schools and outreach programs in your area for a setting that fits the course and your schedule.
Your placement advisor confirms the mentor's willingness, identifies the agreement signer, and gathers the details the site sheet asks for, so your packet can go in ahead of the October 1, March 1 or May 1 deadline. If a site backs out, we move straight to a replacement.
For students planning an NP program next, we also map the preceptor landscape where you live, so you apply with a realistic plan for the clinical sites the graduate essay asks about. UCCS faculty approve every site; we make sure what you submit is complete and fits the course. Start with the form below.
Questions UCCS students ask
How many clinical hours does NURS 4450 require at UCCS?
UCCS calls NURS 4450 a contact hour course, yet no program, course or checklist page gives the hour count. The course faculty set the requirement, so confirm it when you complete the enrollment checklist and before you ask a site for a schedule. Your mentor will need the figure to agree to host you.
Is the UCCS RN to BSN fully online?
The coursework is. All required nursing courses run online in 8-week blocks, and the FAQ says the program is fully online, including NURS 4450. The catalog, however, lists some electives and the public health clinical as exceptions to online delivery. In practice, the NURS 4450 contact hours happen in person at the community site you secure.
Can I do NURS 4450 at the hospital where I work?
Not on your own unit, and not on any inpatient acute unit. UCCS's site sheet rules out both. A community-facing department, clinic or program of a larger health system may still qualify if course faculty find it appropriate, so describe the setting precisely on the site sheet and ask faculty before you commit.
What is the difference between the RN to BSN and Dual Enrollment?
The RN to BSN is for nurses who already hold an RN license. Dual Enrollment is for students still in an associate degree nursing program, who take BSN courses alongside their ADN. Colorado Dual Enrollment students may take NURS 4450 before licensure but must be licensed before the NURS 4480 capstone.
How long does the UCCS RN to BSN take?
UCCS's FAQ gives about 1 to 1.5 years for students taking two 8-week courses each semester, and about 1.5 to 2.5 years at one course per semester. Classes start every eight weeks, so you can begin in any session, but plan backward from the NURS 4450 checklist deadline for the semester you want.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against UCCS's catalog, practicum handbooks and college pages. Your degree plan, the handbook for your cohort and the Graduate Clinical Practicum Coordinator have the final word.
UCCS asks you to find your clinical hours where you live. Let us run that search.
Tell us your UCCS track, your next clinical course and where you live. We find preceptors who fit the course and prepare the details your Clinical Site Sheet needs, early enough for the agreement to be signed before the semester.
- Preceptors matched to the course: pediatrics for
NURS 6900, acute and chronic care forNURS 6915andNURS 6925, psychiatric prescribers forNURS 6801toNURS 6803 - Credentials, license, certification and the site's signer ready for the Clinical Site Sheet
- In Colorado Springs, along the Front Range, or in any of UCCS's approved states
Start your placement plan
Your program, city and next clinical semester is all we need to begin.