Delray Beach has one practical nursing campus inside its city limits: Cambridge College of Healthcare & Technology at 5150 Linton Boulevard. Students here commute: Boynton Beach to the north, Boca Raton and Deerfield Beach to the south, and Lake Worth for Palm Beach County's largest public program. A 40-mile radius from 33445 covers most of Palm Beach County and reaches into northern Broward.
That commute is the first real cost, and not the largest one. Programs run roughly 12 to 18 months, tuition between a public college and a private career school can differ several times over, and Florida licensure fees land on top of both. Long-term care, not hospital floors, still absorbs most new LPN graduates in this county.
Who Hires LPNs in Delray Beach, and Where Students Do Clinicals
Nursing in Long Term Care, not hospitals, employs the largest share of LPNs in Palm Beach County. That single fact should shape how you evaluate every program on this page, because it determines where you will spend your clinical hours and where your first job offer is likely to come from.
The Local Employer Landscape
The acute-care names are familiar: Delray Medical Center, Bethesda Hospital East in Boynton Beach, Boca Raton Regional Hospital, and HCA Florida JFK Hospital in Atlantis. Hospitals in this market lean heavily on RNs for bedside roles, so LPN openings there tend to be concentrated in clinics, physician practices, and post-acute units.
The volume sits elsewhere. Palm Beach County has roughly 50 nursing homes, including facilities like Manorcare Health Services on Jog Road just west of Delray. Layer on the county's dense assisted living sector and a crowded home health market, with agencies such as USA Home Health Services on West Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach, UCI Home Health Services on S. Military Trail in Delray Beach, PSI Home Health in Boynton Beach, and Preferred Care Home Health Services in West Palm Beach. An older-than-average resident population drives that demand, and it is not softening.
Clinical Hours and Placement Reality
LPN programs in Florida are built around clock hours, and clinical rotations are a substantial slice. The School Board of Palm Beach County program runs 1,350 hours with at least half devoted to clinical, roughly 675 supervised hours, at a 1:12 instructor-to-student ratio. Palm Beach Center for Certification also runs 1,350 clock hours over 12 to 18 months. HCI College itemizes 480 clinical hours across four semesters, and the Academy for Nursing and Health Occupations totals 1,518 combined classroom, lab, and clinical hours.
That 1:12 ratio is why cohorts stay small. Every seat requires a supervised slot at a partner facility, and placement capacity, not classroom space, is what creates waitlists here. Ask any program directly which sites they hold agreements with before you enroll.
Practical Nursing Programs Within Commuting Distance of Delray Beach
Below are the top LPN programs serving Delray Beach students, ranked by completion outcomes, accreditation, and how well each fits a commuting schedule. For a student starting from 33445, the questions that shape the decision are practical ones: how long the drive is, what the program costs after financial aid, how many students actually finish, and whether classes meet on campus or blend in some online coursework. Where a school reports a graduation rate or a net price, that figure describes the whole institution rather than the practical nursing program alone.
How we ranked these
- Median graduate debt
- Institution-wide graduation rates
- Net cost after financial aid
- Accreditation and state board approval
- Lower weight on retention and earnings
- IPEDS institutional survey data from NCES covering graduation rates, retention rates and student-faculty ratios — nces.ed.gov
- College Scorecard graduate earnings — collegescorecard.ed.gov
- Internal program database
- Independent editorial research
HCI College
This West Palm Beach campus sits roughly 20 miles north of Delray Beach, and it anchors HCI College's practical nursing diploma, a 16-month program also offered at a Fort Lauderdale site. The curriculum pairs classroom theory with clinical simulation and rotations in medical-surgical nursing, pharmacology, medication administration, geriatrics, obstetrics, and pediatrics. Required materials and uniforms are included at no extra cost, and the college offers financial aid guidance plus career placement help for graduates.
Practical Nursing, Certificate or Diploma — On-Campus
Southeastern College-West Palm Beach
About six miles down the coast in Boynton Beach, Southeastern College runs a 12-month practical nurse diploma that suits students who want a short daily drive. The 43-credit curriculum moves through six sequential courses, Practical Nursing I through VI, with clinical time at extended care facilities and hospitals. A high school diploma or GED plus a minimum ATI TEAS score is required for admission, so it helps to schedule the entrance exam early. Graduates are prepared for entry-level roles in long-term care, home health, hospitals, and outpatient settings, and federal student aid is available for those who qualify.
Practical Nurse Diploma — On-Campus
Sheridan Technical College
Sheridan Technical College, a public school in Hollywood about 35 miles south, runs its practical nursing program in 12 months with five start dates a year, so applicants rarely wait long for a seat. The curriculum covers medical, surgical, obstetric, pediatric, and geriatric nursing, with clinical rotations in acute and long-term care and basic life support training built in. The program advertises a 92% licensure pass rate and a job placement rate of 50%, and it gives graduates a route to continue toward an RN or BSN. As a public technical college, its price point sits well below the private schools in this group, though the daily drive is longer than the Palm Beach County campuses.
Practical Nursing, Certificate or Diploma — On-Campus
William T McFatter Technical College
McFatter Technical College in Davie, roughly 35 miles southwest of Delray Beach, delivers its practical nursing program full time Monday through Thursday over 12 months. Students move through foundational nursing, medical-surgical nursing, and comprehensive skills with integrated lab, simulation, and clinical experiences. The program reports a 97% licensure pass rate and 77% job placement, and its total cost of $6,525 for Florida residents includes fees and books. Admission requires a high school diploma or GED, a TEAS score, a physical exam, and a background check.
Practical Nursing, Certificate or Diploma — Hybrid
Atlantic Technical College
Atlantic Technical College sits in Coconut Creek, about 20 miles southwest of Delray Beach, and runs a 12-month practical nursing certificate with five start dates a year. Instruction is classroom-based, with clinical practice in hospitals and extended care settings covering maternal and newborn care, pediatrics, geriatrics, and community nursing. The program reports a 99% licensure pass rate and 97% job placement, is ACEN accredited, and is eligible for a money-back guarantee. Applicants take the TEAS or HESI and must clear an FDLE Level II background check.
Practical Nursing, Certificate or Diploma — On-Campus
Palm Beach State College
Palm Beach State College is the nearest public option, about 15 miles north in Lake Worth, and its one-year practical nursing certificate is a limited-access program that starts in the spring. Coursework covers medical-surgical nursing, pharmacology, geriatric and pediatric nursing, with clinical training at area health care facilities. Admission runs through a competitive application that requires attending a mandatory information session and passing the HESI entrance exam. The certificate transfers directly into the college's Associate in Science in Nursing, and financial aid and scholarships are available for qualified students.
Practical Nursing, Certificate or Diploma — On-Campus
Florida Academy of Nursing
Florida Academy of Nursing in Miramar, about 45 miles south of Delray Beach, offers the longest program on this list and is a stretch as a daily drive from 33445. The practical nursing diploma totals 1,485 hours, with a 71-week day track and a 79-week evening track for students who need to work while enrolled. Delivery is onsite rather than online, and the school is accredited by ACCSC. The curriculum emphasizes safe patient care, technical skill, and relationship-centered practice, and it positions graduates to apply for state LPN licensure.
Practical Nursing Diploma Program — On-Campus
Concorde Career Institute-Miramar
Concorde Career Institute's Miramar campus, about 45 miles south, offers a practical and vocational nursing diploma that can be finished in as few as 12 to 13 months. Students enter as nursing students from day one rather than completing a separate prerequisite phase, with hands-on labs and clinical rotations at local health care facilities. Classes are small and support is built in, and financial aid and scholarships are available for students who qualify. Graduates can sit for the NCLEX-PN or NCLEX-VN, and LPNs who continue on have an established pathway to RN licensure.
Practical / Vocational Nursing Diploma Program — On-Campus
Miami Lakes Educational Center and Technical College
Miami Lakes Educational Center and Technical College, about 55 miles south of Delray Beach, runs a 15-month practical nursing program with rolling, open enrollment so students can start throughout the year. The program includes 675 clinical hours in hospitals and health care facilities and covers medical, surgical, obstetric, pediatric, and geriatric nursing along with pharmacology, nutrition, and the legal side of practice. Day and evening schedules are available, and the total program cost is $6,366 plus a $20 application fee. Graduates can articulate into the RN program at Miami-Dade College.
Practical Nursing, Certificate or Diploma — On-Campus
Hope College of Arts and Sciences
Hope College of Arts and Sciences in Pompano Beach, roughly 20 miles south, compresses its practical nursing diploma into 52 weeks and 1,350 contact hours. Classroom lectures are blended with online modules and syllabi, and clinical training includes extensive rotations and lab work, with some evening rotations potentially available. Prerequisite courses are required before the program begins, so students should plan for that extra term. Graduates are prepared for the NCLEX-PN and can continue later through one of the school's LPN-to-RN bridge options.
Practical Nursing Diploma — On-Campus
Can You Do an LPN Program Online From Delray Beach?
An "online" LPN program means the lecture portion of your training, pharmacology, medical-surgical theory, growth and development, gets delivered through a learning platform instead of a classroom seat. That is where the online part stops. Skills labs, where you practice injections, catheter insertion, and wound care on manikins, and clinical rotations in real facilities are always in person. No state, Florida included, licenses a practical nurse who has never been supervised at a bedside. No LPN program can be completed fully online, and any school advertising otherwise deserves a hard look.
How Many Nearby Programs Actually Offer Hybrid Delivery
Among the programs within commuting range of Delray Beach that we track, the overwhelming majority are classified as campus-based. Only one, William T. McFatter Technical College in Davie, is categorized as hybrid, and even its own program materials describe a full-time day schedule Monday through Thursday with traditional on-campus delivery. A separate Palm Beach County practical nursing listing describes its program as hybrid across a 12 to 18 month window.2 Treat "hybrid LPN programs" as a label that means less than it sounds like until admissions confirms the specifics.
Length and Schedule Options
Most Palm Beach County programs run 1,350 clock hours, which translates to roughly 12 to 18 months. Palm Beach State College in Lake Worth completes in about 12 months full-time, days only, Monday through Thursday.1 HCI College in West Palm Beach runs 16 months. South Florida Healthcare Institute lists 12 months full-time, Monday through Wednesday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and describes itself as 100 percent classroom based. Medical Institute of Palm Beach is the clearest evening option locally: 13.5 months days, 17.5 months nights.
Three Questions for Admissions
- How many days per week am I physically on campus, including lab?
- What are the actual clinical shift times, and are any of them overnight or weekend?
- Does the hybrid track follow a different cohort calendar than the day track?
What LPNs Earn in the West Palm Beach–boca Raton–delray Beach Metro
Delray Beach no longer appears as its own metro division in current federal wage reporting, it is folded into the larger Miami–Fort Lauderdale–West Palm Beach area, so the closest reliable figure is the regional average rather than a Delray-specific median.
NCLEX-PN Pass Rates at Palm Beach County Schools vs. the Florida Average
Florida reports NCLEX-PN results by calendar year, and practical nursing cohorts here are small enough that a handful of retakes can swing a school's rate by ten points or more, so read any single year as a snapshot rather than a verdict. The statewide first-time pass rate for Florida practical nursing graduates was 80.78 percent in 2024, which is the number to measure any local program against: a school sitting consistently below the state average signals that graduates are arriving at the exam under-prepared, and Florida can place chronically low-performing programs on probationary status and ultimately move to withdraw approval. Among Palm Beach County programs, the Academy for Nursing and Health Occupations in West Palm Beach is the one with publicly reported results in the data reviewed here; individual first-time pass rates for the smaller Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, Boca Raton, and Lake Worth practical nursing programs are not broken out in the reporting available, so ask each school directly for its most recent annual figure and the size of the cohort behind it.
| Program | City | First-Time NCLEX-PN Pass Rate | Reporting Year | Florida State Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Academy for Nursing and Health Occupations Practical Nursing Program | West Palm Beach | 87.50 percent | 2022 | Not reported for this year |
| Academy for Nursing and Health Occupations Practical Nursing Program | West Palm Beach | 91.67 percent | 2024 | 80.78 percent |
Florida Board of Nursing Approval Is Not the Same as Accreditation
Two different stamps of approval get thrown around interchangeably in program marketing, and confusing them can cost you money and time. Florida Board of Nursing (FBON) approval is the state credential that makes graduates eligible to sit the NCLEX-PN.4 National accreditation from ACEN, the Commission on Education (COE), or ABHES is a separate quality review that colleges use to judge whether your credits transfer and whether you qualify for federal financial aid.
How to Verify Both, Not Just One
Don't take a school's own accreditation page at face value. Cross-check two independent sources: the FBON's list of approved prelicensure nursing programs4, and the accreditor's own program directory (ACEN, COE, or ABHES each publish searchable databases). A program can be FBON-approved and still be non-accredited, or hold accreditation status that's provisional rather than full.
What Delray-Area Programs Actually Hold
Cambridge College of Healthcare & Technology's Delray Beach practical nursing diploma is FBON-approved and, as of mid-2026, holds ACEN candidacy for initial accreditation, a status that expires in spring 2028 and is not the same as full accreditation.1 Cambridge's associate degree nursing track at the same campus carries full ACEN accreditation, so don't assume one program's status extends to another at the same school. Elsewhere in the region, Fortis campuses show how accreditation status can vary by program even within one institution: at Cutler Bay, the practical nursing track is approved while the associate degree program sits in probationary status2; at Port St. Lucie, both tracks are approved3.
This is exactly why LPN to RN bridge programs stall. Credits from a program without recognized accreditation often won't transfer, forcing students to repeat coursework they already paid for.
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The Real Price Tag: Tuition, Fees, and Licensure Costs
The advertised tuition figure rarely reflects what a family actually pays. Net price, the average amount students pay after all grants and scholarships are applied, tells a more honest story, and across the ranked Delray-commuting programs that institution-wide average spans roughly $9,000 at Palm Beach State College to well over $30,000 at private career colleges like HCI College. Treat any single number as a sector-wide average, not a personal quote.
Costs Beyond the Tuition Line
Schools list several charges separately from tuition, and they add up. Expect line items for textbooks and digital course access, uniforms and clinical shoes, a stethoscope and skills-lab kit, lab or technology fees, background screening and drug testing, immunizations, and CPR certification. Regional Florida LPN programs cost between roughly $1,500 and $4,000 for these non-tuition items, though some schools bundle NCLEX review and testing fees into a single lab charge, which inflates that category compared to schools that itemize separately.
Florida Licensure Fees
Once coursework wraps, graduates face state-level costs that exist outside any school's price sheet. The Florida Department of Health application fee for practical nurse licensure runs around $110. Fingerprinting and background screening, paid to an FDLE-approved vendor rather than the state itself, typically falls in the $75 to $90 range, though in-state pricing can run lower. The Pearson VUE NCLEX-PN registration fee currently sits at $200, and it is scheduled to jump to $350 in February 2027, so timing matters if a cohort finishes near that date.
Public vs. Private, and the Aid Question
Public and state college tuition in the Delray commuting radius tends to sit in the low thousands, while private career-college diploma programs often price total attendance in the $27,000 to $35,000 range, with median program debt published for some of those schools reaching into the high teens or twenties in thousands. Pell Grant eligibility hinges on a program's accreditation status, so unaccredited, clock-hour practical nursing programs may be cash-pay only, a detail worth confirming before enrolling.
Admission Requirements, Entrance Exams, and Upcoming Cohort Dates
Practical nursing admissions in Palm Beach County run on two different clocks. Palm Beach State College and South Florida Health Care Institute admit in fixed cohorts with hard deadlines, while HCI College accepts applications year-round and starts classes as seats open. Build your timeline around whichever model you're targeting, and gather the screening paperwork early, it routinely takes longer than applicants expect.
- High school diploma or GEDRequired across the board. South Florida Health Care Institute states it explicitly as a condition of admission to its practical nursing program.
- Minimum ageSouth Florida Health Care Institute requires applicants to be at least 18 years old.
- Entrance exam and cutoff scorePalm Beach State College requires a cumulative HESI A2 of 75 or higher, plus the Level A TABE unless you qualify for an exemption (minimums of 11 in Reading, Language, and Mathematics). South Florida Health Care Institute also sets a 75% minimum on the HESI entrance exam. HCI College accepts either an ATI TEAS composite of at least 40 or a minimum of 70 on each required HESI A2 section, with HESI A2 results honored for two years from the test date. PBCCedu lists a lower bar, a cumulative HESI of 60 with at least 60 on the math portion.
- Prerequisite courseworkPBCCedu requires Introduction to Health and Medical Terminology with a grade of C or better. Palm Beach State applicants must attend a mandatory information session and apply under Program Code 5234 through the limited-access application process.
- Level 2 background screeningSouth Florida Health Care Institute requires an FDLE Level II background check along with a negative drug screen. Expect a comparable screening at any program placing students in clinical facilities.
- Immunizations and physicalSouth Florida Health Care Institute requires documented immunizations and a physical exam before clinical placement.
- CPR certificationPrograms generally expect current healthcare-provider CPR certification before clinicals begin; confirm the accepted certifying body directly with your school, since requirements aren't uniformly published.
- 2026–2027 cohort dates and deadlinesPalm Beach State College admits once a year for a January start; the current cycle lists a Spring 2027 cohort with an October 15, 2026 application deadline. South Florida Health Care Institute has closed Fall 2026 applications and will open applications in November 2026 for a Spring 2027 start. South Florida State College, well outside the Delray Beach commute but sometimes surfacing in searches, lists a May 10, 2027 deadline and uses the ATI TEAS.
- Rolling versus fixed intakeHCI College accepts applications throughout the year, with start dates and seat availability varying, call Admissions for the current calendar. Palm Beach State and South Florida Health Care Institute run fixed cohorts, so missing a deadline means waiting a full cycle.
- Waitlist statusNone of these programs currently publishes a waitlist policy. If a cohort fills, ask the admissions office directly whether alternates are named and how you'd be notified.
Becoming an LPN in Delray Beach at a Glance
Here are the numbers from this guide in one place. Read them together rather than one at a time: the length of training, what it costs, how Florida test-takers perform, and what the job pays locally are the four variables that decide whether practical nursing makes sense for you in the next 12 to 18 months.
