Back to the topic! As for the value of the DNP? This is going to be long, but it is a topic near and dear to me, and OP was looking for more like this:
I didn't finish my BSN because of what nursing education turns into beyond the Diploma/Associates level. Those underrated two year programs are intensely focused on clinical care of patients, you know, nursing. I thought that continuing my education as a nurse would make me better at caring for patients. Instead, I found that the programs veer sharply away from clinical practice, and begin to be about administration, "research," and otherwise escaping from bedside care of patients. The coursework became a lot of paperwork and no additional clinical enhancement. I was 11 credits from completing it, but I couldn't make myself do one more literature review project dressed up as research. To get the bachelor's degree that I need to matriculate, I instead enrolled in an online business administration program that required me to do an extra 90 credits, which was made easier than 11 credits of nursing because it wasn't just busywork. I actually learned some things of value to my future practice.
I have friends in NP programs who are in despair because they thought that they would get more of a clinical education. While there has been a review of topics previously covered in their first 2-4 years of nursing education, they also have had their time wasted with many projects and papers that bear no relevance to patient care. Even their clinical component involves doing "literature reviews on best practices that could be implemented to solve problems identified by hospital administration" ...an unnecessary distraction from learning how to manage the care of patients. DNP just seems to be more of the same, but without any pretense of clinical training. I am left to conclude that the good NPs that I know got that way through their own initiative, in spite of their programs.
The best RNs, for doing the actual, dirty, terribly undervalued work of nursing, are the ones from Diploma or Associates programs. They get more clinical training than 4 year university nurses, and they don't think they are too good to care for patients. But, they are told that they aren't qualified enough, aren't educated enough, that to be worthy as a nurse, they need to get on the nursing degree treadmill. The hospital wants to be able to brag that all of their nurses are BSNs or better, as if that is a quality measure. The more we hold up number of years of study as the sole measure of value, the more pressure we add to this system to continue. A diploma-trained nurse is more prepared to work than one that went to a BSN program to get their RN, right out of the door. From that point on, years of experience are what improve the quality of a nurse, not years of further education.
I'm getting out of the profession entirely because I don't want to be pushed away from the bedside. Advancement up the nursing ladder leads inexorably away from patient care. It is emotionally and physically demanding work that is done under a barrage of disrespect from patients, administration, and many of the other professionals with whom we work. (Just today, I was berated by one doctor for not knowing where another doctor was, and then when the errant one showed up, he also abused me for not having left my post to find him to tell him that the first one had wanted him. I'm not either's secretary and they both have phones. I'm expected to be the adult and forgive all the little slights, to refocus these grown men on the fact that we are all here for the patient, and could we get back to the job at hand, please.) Even so, even with every annoyance and frustration, every filthy thing that is my problem to clean, every transfer I have to do alone... I love taking care of patients. I love helping them. And most avenues of nursing education would only take that away from me.
(Some advanced practice RNs do eventually get back to patient care in their practice, but I don't want to do all that is required along the way, just to end up still in a subordinate role. And while there are places where I could practice independently in those roles, I wouldn't feel confident to do without a more clinically rigorous program than the one's I've seen.)