Nicholls State University offers 3 Nutrition and Dietetics credentials:
- B.S., Dietetics — accredited Didactic Program in Dietetics
- Dietetic Internship, Graduate Certificate
- M.S., Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics Leadership
Program Tracks Overview
| Program | Est. Tuition | Est. Duration | Credit Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| B.S., Dietetics | ~$36,100 total (derived) | 4 years (8 semesters) | 120 |
| Dietetic Internship | Not clearly stated as a single total; billed at graduate rates during 3 practicum semesters | 3 semesters | Not clearly stated as a fixed total |
| M.S., Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics Leadership | ~$16,000 total (published per-semester rate) | 12–18 months (4 semesters) | 36 |
Nicholls’ defining fact is a genuine conflict on the university’s own site: its Dietetic Internship page states the DI “has been granted full accreditation status until June 30, 2028” by ACEND, while the university’s own 2025–26 catalog states the same DI curriculum “has been granted candidate status.” Full accreditation and candidate status are different things to ACEND. Confirm current status directly with the program before relying on it. Cost is more settled: Nicholls runs several thousand dollars less over a four-year degree than Louisiana Tech’s equivalent bachelor’s.
Quick Facts
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Program Types | B.S. Dietetics (DPD), Dietetic Internship Graduate Certificate, M.S. Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics Leadership |
| Format | Campus (B.S.); Hybrid (Internship: campus coursework + in-person supervised practice); Online (M.S., 100% online) |
| Credit Hours | 120 (B.S.); not clearly stated as a fixed total (DI); 36 (M.S.) |
| ACEND Accreditation | B.S./DPD: yes. Dietetic Internship: disputed on the university’s own site (full accreditation to 2028 per the department page; candidate status per the 2025–26 catalog). |
| RD/RDN Eligibility | Yes, via the DPD plus the Dietetic Internship plus a graduate degree and the CDR exam, subject to the DI’s disputed ACEND status above |
| Supervised Practice | Minimum 1,200 hours; DI admits a maximum of 14 students/year (up to 7 pre-selected from Nicholls’ own DPD graduates, the rest matched via DICAS/D&D Digital) |
| Specializations | None formal; the M.S. is titled Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics Leadership |
| Research Requirement | Not clearly stated whether the M.S. requires a thesis; the published sample schedule ends with a single culminating course (DIET 513) rather than a named thesis sequence |
| Entrance Exams | DI: GRE preferred (formula: DPD GPA × 20 + Verbal + Quantitative ≥ 340), waivable with a satisfactory GPA. Not stated for the B.S. or M.S. |
| Intake | DPD: one competitive cohort per year, capped at 30 admits. DI: one annual cycle via DICAS and D&D Digital matching, capped at 14. |
| GPA Floor | 2.75 overall plus “C” or better in prerequisites (DPD entry, with “B” or better in DIET 200/202); 3.0 overall (DI) |
| Tuition | $205/credit (published, in-state undergraduate, board tuition only, linear to a 12-credit cap); see Tuition section |
| Institutional Accreditation | SACSCOC |
B.S., Dietetics
The estimated tuition for the B.S. in Dietetics at Nicholls State is approximately $36,100 in-state and $40,500 non-resident (120 credits across 8 semesters at the published full-time semester rate; derived, see Tuition). The program requires 120 credit hours and is structured as a conventional four-year, eight-semester sequence.
The Dietetics major is Nicholls’ only accredited pathway; there is no separate non-clinical or research-track nutrition major documented alongside it.
B.S. Curriculum
A competitive internal application gates the major, not just a GPA line. After completing prerequisites (biology and biology lab sequences, general chemistry, English composition, math, a psychology elective, speech, and two foundation DIET courses) with a 2.75 overall GPA, “C” or better in each prerequisite, and “B” or better in DIET 200 or 202, students apply for the DPD itself. The program accepts a maximum of 30 applicants per year, and meeting the minimums does not guarantee a seat. Accepted students are placed together into DIET 300, 316, and 411 the following fall, so admission is a single annual cohort rather than a rolling process.
The published curriculum lists courses by number across four years (DIET 100, 111, 113, 200, 201, 202, 264, 300, 301, 305, 316, 330, 390, 395, 403, 404, 411, 412, 416, 418, 419, and 459, alongside the general-education and business-elective courses shown below), sequenced so that a student who misses the annual DPD admission cycle loses a full year rather than a term.
- BIOL 114/115, 116/117: general biology lecture and lab sequence
- CHEM 109 and CHEM 208: general chemistry and a second chemistry course
- DIET 200/202: gateway dietetics course requiring a “B” or better for DPD entry
- DIET 300, 316, 411: the three courses the first cohort semester is built around
- MKTG 300: a business marketing course inside the major
- DIET 404, 412, 416, 418: senior-year dietetics coursework
Full course titles are listed in Nicholls’ Courses of Instruction catalog section; the program checklist above lists numbers and credit hours without repeating titles, so verify individual course content there rather than from the number alone.
More curriculum details are available here.
You Should Know
Completion of the DPD does not guarantee eligibility for or acceptance into any dietetic internship, including Nicholls’ own; the catalog states this explicitly. With Nicholls’ DI capped at 14 seats a year and Louisiana Tech and Southern University running the other two in-state internships, a DPD graduate who is not pre-selected is competing for a small number of seats against applicants statewide and nationally.
B.S. Admissions
Admission to the Dietetics major happens in two stages: general university admission, then a separate, competitive DPD application once prerequisites are complete.
- Declared Dietetics major after program acceptance
- 2.75 overall GPA
- All prerequisite courses completed with a “C” or better, and DIET 200 or 202 with a “B” or better
- Maximum 30 admits per year; a competitive process, not a guarantee
Dietetic Internship, Graduate Certificate
Nicholls does not publish a single fixed tuition total for the Dietetic Internship on its own; it is billed at graduate rates across three practicum semesters (see Tuition). The program requires a minimum of 1,200 hours of supervised practice and is structured as three sequential semesters: Dietetics Preprofessional Practice I, II, and III (DIET 520, 521, 522).
The DI is one of three dietetic internships based in Louisiana; Louisiana Tech and Southern University run the other two. Nicholls’ DI admits a maximum of 14 students a year: up to 7 are pre-selected from Nicholls’ own DPD graduates, and the remainder are matched nationally through DICAS and the D&D Digital computer matching process. Louisiana Tech offers no equivalent pre-select track for its own undergraduates.
Dietetic Internship Curriculum
- Semester 1: DIET 520, Dietetics Preprofessional Practice I
- Semester 2: DIET 521, Dietetics Preprofessional Practice II
- Semester 3: DIET 522, Dietetics Preprofessional Practice III
- Interns who also pursue the M.S. can apply up to 9 shared credit hours toward both the DI and the degree
More admissions details are available here.
You Should Know
Nicholls’ own pages disagree on the DI’s ACEND status. The Dietetic Internship program page states full accreditation through June 30, 2028. The 2025–26 university catalog, describing the same curriculum, states candidate status instead. Candidate status and full accreditation carry different standing with ACEND and can affect CDR exam eligibility timing. Ask the program directly which status currently applies before relying on either page.
Dietetic Internship Supervised Practice
- Total hours: minimum 1,200, at affiliate healthcare institutions
- Placement: matched through D&D Digital and DICAS, or pre-selected for up to 7 of the 14 annual seats
- Program application fee: $40
At a minimum of 1,200 hours, the requirement sits above the roughly 1,000-hour standard commonly cited for CDR-accredited programs. The pre-select track is the more consequential fact for a Nicholls undergraduate: it converts up to half of a statewide-competitive internship into something closer to an internal placement for students who complete the DPD at Nicholls itself.
Dietetic Internship Admissions
Nicholls runs a single annual application cycle; there is no secondary intake.
- Baccalaureate degree from an ACEND-accredited program in nutrition, dietetics, or a related field
- DPD declaration of intent to complete requirements for the verification statement
- Minimum 3.0 overall GPA
- GRE preferred at a composite of 340 (DPD GPA × 20 + Verbal + Quantitative); waivable with a satisfactory GPA
- DICAS application, D&D Digital matching application, and $40 program application fee
M.S., Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics Leadership
The estimated tuition for the M.S. in Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics Leadership at Nicholls State is approximately $16,000 (36 credits across roughly 4 semesters at the department’s published rate of about $4,000/semester). The program requires 36 credit hours and is designed to be completed in 12–18 months.
The M.S. is delivered 100% online and can be taken concurrently with the Dietetic Internship; up to 9 credit hours count toward both. Taken alone, it is a standalone graduate degree; taken alongside the DI, it satisfies the CDR’s post-2024 graduate-degree requirement while the DI supplies supervised practice.
M.S. Curriculum
Nicholls publishes a sample concurrent schedule for students enrolled in both the M.S. and the DI: Summer (DIET 510, 511, 512), Fall (DIET 502, 503, plus a DI rotation), Spring (DIET 504, 505, plus a DI rotation), and a second Fall (DIET 506, AHSC 500, DIET 513), 9 credit hours each term for 36 total. A student pursuing the M.S. without the DI would substitute elective coursework for the DI rotation credits shown.
More program details are available here.
You Should Know
The published sample schedule does not name a thesis course; the final term ends with DIET 513 rather than a labeled thesis or capstone sequence. Confirm with the program whether a thesis, a non-thesis project, or a leadership capstone is required, since the degree title (“Leadership”) suggests a practice-oriented rather than research-oriented culmination.
M.S. Admissions
Admission details specific to the M.S. beyond graduate school minimums were not published on the pages reviewed; contact the program directly (sherry.foret@nicholls.edu) for current requirements, particularly if applying for the M.S. without the DI.
Tuition
Nicholls publishes a genuinely linear per-credit undergraduate board tuition rate: $205.10 per credit hour in-state, holding steady from 3 credits through a flat-rate cap at 12 credits ($2,461.14 board tuition at 12 or more hours per semester). Graduate board tuition works the same way but caps at 9 credits ($2,842.80 at 9 or more hours per semester, about $236.90/credit up to that point), consistent with a 9-credit graduate full-time definition.
Total cost (tuition plus all mandatory fees) at full-time enrollment, published directly rather than derived:
- Undergraduate, 12+ credits/semester, resident: $4,512.05/semester
- Undergraduate, 12+ credits/semester, non-resident: $5,058.65/semester
- Graduate, 9+ credits/semester: department-quoted at approximately $4,000/semester for the Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics Leadership M.S.
Estimated Totals by Credential (derived)
- B.S., Dietetics (120 credits / 8 semesters): approximately $36,096 resident, $40,469 non-resident, using the published full-time semester total × 8
- M.S., Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics Leadership (36 credits / roughly 4 semesters): approximately $16,000, using the department’s own quoted per-semester rate
- Dietetic Internship alone: not reducible to a single total from published figures; billed at graduate rates across 3 practicum semesters, plus a $40 application fee
Be aware that:
- The state hub’s cited figure of $8,810 in resident tuition and fees for Nicholls appears to use an earlier academic year’s rate table; the current published full-time resident total is $4,512.05/semester, or $9,024.10 across two semesters, close to but not identical to the hub figure. Rates are set annually and should be re-verified before enrolling.
- Fees above 12 credit hours (undergraduate) or 9 credit hours (graduate) include an Excess Credit Hour Fee that adds several hundred to over a thousand dollars at 18 or 21 credit hours; students overloading a semester should check the fee table rather than assuming a flat full-time rate applies indefinitely.
- Non-resident students pay a separate Non-Resident Fee layered on top of the resident total ($546.60/semester at 12+ credits), rather than a wholesale non-resident tuition rate.
- Rates cited here are from Nicholls’ own Fall 2026/Spring 2027 published fee schedule. Verify current rates against Nicholls’ Mandatory Tuition and Fees page for your specific term and classification.
For an in-state student on the standard four-year timeline, Nicholls is the least expensive of the two accredited bachelor’s-to-internship routes documented in Louisiana so far, running several thousand dollars below Louisiana Tech’s equivalent total. That gap narrows or reverses for a non-resident once the internship and graduate-degree stages are added, since neither Nicholls nor Louisiana Tech publishes a combined non-resident total for the full pathway.
Why Choose This Nutrition Program?
Best suited for students who want the least expensive accredited route to the RD credential in Louisiana and are comfortable with a numerically capped, competitive internship rather than an open one.
Choose Nicholls if cost is the binding constraint. At roughly $36,100 for the bachelor’s degree alone, resident tuition and fees run several thousand dollars below Louisiana Tech’s equivalent four-year total, and the M.S. at about $4,000 a semester is billed transparently by the department itself rather than requiring a derived estimate.
Choose Nicholls if you want to stay in-house for the internship. Up to half of the DI’s 14 annual seats are pre-selected from Nicholls’ own DPD graduates, a structural advantage no other Louisiana program documented so far offers. A Nicholls DPD graduate who is not pre-selected still competes for the remaining seats through the same national D&D Digital match everyone else uses.
Choose the online M.S. if you want a graduate degree that does not require relocating. At 100% online delivery, it is the more flexible graduate option of the two Louisiana schools documented so far, and its credit-sharing arrangement with the DI shortens the combined timeline to 12–18 months.
The honest drawback: Nicholls’ own pages cannot agree on whether its Dietetic Internship currently holds full ACEND accreditation or candidate status, and the DPD itself admits only 30 students a year on a competitive basis. A prospective student choosing Nicholls for the cost advantage should still confirm the DI’s current accreditation status directly with the program before enrolling in the bachelor’s degree.
Accreditation
Nicholls State University is institutionally accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), which governs the university’s authority to award degrees, the transferability of its credits, admission to its graduate programs, and eligibility for federal financial aid. This institutional accreditation covers every program at the university, including all three nutrition and dietetics credentials described here.
Programmatic accreditation is narrower and comes from the Accreditation Council for Education in Nutrition and Dietetics (ACEND), the only accreditor relevant to RD eligibility. The Didactic Program in Dietetics, delivered through the B.S. in Dietetics, holds current ACEND accreditation without qualification on every source reviewed.
The Dietetic Internship’s ACEND standing is where Nicholls’ own sources disagree, and that disagreement is decision-critical rather than cosmetic. The Dietetic Internship program page states the DI “has been granted full accreditation status until June 30, 2028.” The 2025–26 university catalog, describing the identical curriculum, states it “has been granted candidate status” instead. Both statements cannot be current simultaneously. Candidate status is a real, recognized ACEND designation that precedes full accreditation, and CDR’s exam-eligibility rules treat the two statuses differently in some circumstances, so this is not a distinction to skip past.
The M.S. in Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics Leadership carries no ACEND accreditation of its own; it is a graduate degree that satisfies the CDR’s graduate-degree requirement when paired with an accredited or candidate-status supervised-practice program, not a supervised-practice program itself. Graduates of the DPD may apply to ACEND-accredited or candidate-status supervised-practice programs; on completing supervised practice together with a graduate degree, and meeting current Commission on Dietetic Registration requirements, graduates become eligible to sit for the CDR’s national RDN examination. Confirm the DI’s exact standing with the program before treating that eligibility as settled.
More Nutrition Degrees in Louisiana
- Louisiana Nutrition Programs & Online Degrees
- Louisiana State University - Baton Rouge
- Louisiana Tech University - Ruston
- Southern University and A&M College - Baton Rouge