Educational Leadership Ed.D.

Degree: Ed.D.

Location(s): Rhode Island

Start Date: Fall

Length: 4 years

Cost: $700 per credit*

Credits: 60

Help Shape Future Generations

As one of New England’s premier educational leadership programs, JWU’s Educational Leadership Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) degree will develop your leadership capacity and teach you how to advance change in PK-12 and higher education settings. You’ll build the skills to promote excellence and create positive and necessary change in educational institutions.

Our Educational Leadership program exemplifies the university’s mission of blending academic and work-based learning for career advancement. It’s tailored for those with a master’s degree and several years of experience working in either elementary/secondary or higher education.

In this practice-focused doctoral program, you’ll have the opportunity to learn with a cohort of talented practitioners while building research, leadership and dispositional skills to support career advancement and impactful change.

Choose from three Ed.D. options: the Elementary-Secondary Education and Higher Education tracks beginning each fall, or the Health Professions Ed.D. program, launching in Fall 2027.

Ed.D. Options

Whether you work in K–12 or higher education, JWU’s Ed.D. is built around your context.

Jalyn Alves ’25 M.Ed. teaching in a kindergarten classroom.

Elementary-Secondary Education

This Ed.D. track is for educators, school administrators and leaders currently working in the K-12 field.
Develop skills and dispositions in collaboration, communication, research, critical thinking, problem solving, leadership and technology, learning how to develop solutions to elementary and secondary education issues.
You will be prepared to consider ethical and legal dimensions of actions to close achievement gaps for underrepresented students

MAT alum Greg Horgan teaches high school business classes.

Higher Education

This Ed.D. track is for leaders, college administrators and educators currently working in a higher education setting.
You will strengthen your skills in research, leadership, communication, critical thinking, collaboration, problem-solving and technology in parallel with a grounding in the methodology of developing and testing solutions to higher education issues and improving management functions to support higher learning

Note: Due to the logistics of working in the U.S., the Elementary-Secondary Education track is not open to international students. However, international applicants can apply to the Higher Education track.

Program Structure

60 credit hours (48 of coursework and 12 hours of dissertation work) while maintaining continuous enrollment and a GPA of at least 3.25
Cohort structure for a team approach to studying and solving educational problems
Comprehensive assessment to confirm that you are prepared for dissertation work
Six-year limit for program completion
Classes meet 8 times a semester on a weekend schedule (Friday evenings online and Saturday on campus) with some asynchronous work in between sessions.

Program Sequence

Years 1-2: Complete your Ed.D. coursework (12 credits per semester) to form the foundation for your research and dissertation.
Year 2: Earn the Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies (CAGS) with successful course completion, then complete the Comprehensive Assessment.
Year 3: Post-assessment candidates are assigned an advisor to begin their dissertation. With strong advisement and support from a committee of experts, most candidates complete their dissertation in the same year.
For those in the Principal Residency Network (PRN), expect to complete coursework in three years and your dissertation in Year 4.

CPED and Program Outcomes

JWU’s Ed.D. program is an active member of the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED), a national effort by more than 100 institutions to reform and strengthen the education doctorate. Read more about our Educational Leadership program outcomes.

Admissions & Tuition

The average cost per credit is $700*

*The estimated cost per credit rate is effective for the 2026–27 academic year and is subject to change annually. The Cost of Attendance (COA) is the estimated total amount it will cost a student to attend JWU each year. For more information, contact Student Financial Services.

Learn about the admissions process and tuition for JWU’s graduate programs.

Admissions & Tuition

Advantages of Earning Your Ed.D. at JWU

Innovative Program: Our program is designed to blend the best of all learning environments — you’ll learn through synchronous and asynchronous coursework remotely, accompanied by in-person learning opportunities with your peers in our Providence campus.

Professional Focus: Students travel through the program at the same pace, bonding through shared synchronous experiences, group/partner work, and feedback and guidance from full-time and practitioner faculty. We focus on problems of practice in your professional context.

Accomplished Faculty: Learn from experts — in research as well as connected content. Our practitioner faculty — both full and part-time — work in authentic settings as educational leaders. Their experience enriches the learning in meaningful and authentic ways.

Continuous Support: Our program’s robust personalization and effective dissertation advising supports a consistently high on-time program completion rate.

Personal Connections: Our strong program presence on JWU Providence’s Harborside Campus provides you with access to full-time faculty, program offices, library and other services to augment and support the program. Program administration and faculty have a hands-on and student-focused outlook to speak with and guide students.

Hybrid Schedule: A convenient hybrid weekend schedule provides a mix of remote and twice monthly face-to-face learning.

Network for Life: JWU’s Ed.D. program has had more than 400 successful graduates, most of whom are active and connected members of the program’s alumni network.

Start your application

Cohort-Based Learning to Support Your Leadership Growth

No matter which program track you choose, JWU’s Ed.D. program runs on a cohort model, which means that the small group you start with stays together through the duration of the program, forming friendships and growing together. This cohort provides a supportive peer network to discuss, analyze and solve educational challenges collectively.

Together, you’ll focus your investigation and discussion around theory, professional practice and research interests. Our team approach promotes a true network of working scholars who can examine, critique, support and complement one another’s educational practice.

This degree combines experiential, collaborative, project-based and interactive learning opportunities to provide an effective blend of individual and team-based tasks through in-person, synchronous, remote and asynchronous elements.

Career Options

Elementary-Secondary Education

School superintendent or principal
Curriculum coordinator
Education policy specialist
Instructional coordinator
Education director

Higher Education

College president or provost
Postsecondary administrator
Education policy specialist
Curriculum specialist
Academic dean

Ed.D. Faculty

Our Ed.D. faculty are recognized leaders in their field, providing personalized advising during the dissertation phase to support on-time completion.

Our Expert Faculty

Ed.D. Candidates Share Their Experiences

Luckson Omoaregba ’26 Ed.D.

Director of Pathway Programs
Warren Alpert Medical School
Brown University
Providence, Rhode Island

What helped you decide to enroll here?
The biggest thing for me were the people who I knew, looked up to and considered mentors who had already gone through the program. I’d already interacted with several alumni from the program, which was a huge selling point for me.

What experiences have been most valuable to you?
The interaction with faculty, the courses, and the ability, through our projects, to connect with current higher education professionals where we work is huge. We’ve had multiple projects requiring us to meet with our chief financial officer, our chief H.R. officer, and the person in charge of accreditation. Talking to them about their work, being able to mix the theoretical frameworks, the research and the actual real-life application is a phenomenal thing. Having these networks is crucial.

Deborah Pacheco ’26 Ed.D.

Track Director of Residential Services
League School for Autism
Walpole, Massachusetts

What helped you decide to come to JWU?
I liked that this program is in person and having that interaction. And because it is a cohort, and we are with the same people throughout the process, that really gravitated me towards the program.

Which experiences that have been most valuable to you?
For most of the projects, you must implement them into your own workplace, and that is where it’s been effective. I’m able to take a lot of what I’m learning into my workplace, and that’s been fruitful.

If you could give advice to someone considering this program, what would it be?
It’s hard but so worth it. I feel so rejuvenated professionally and look forward to how I’ll use what we learned. I say go for it. You will become a better person.

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Faculty Contact

Victor Mercurio, Ed.D.
Director of the Educational Leadership Program
School of Education
401-598-2434
victor.mercurio@jwu.edu