Fayetteville State University Department of Nursing

Fayetteville State University is a public HBCU in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and a constituent institution of the University of North Carolina System. The Department of Nursing, housed inside the Lloyd College of Health, Science, and Technology, was established in 1992 as a baccalaureate completion pathway and now operates four nursing degree tracks plus a graduate certificate. Both the baccalaureate and master's programs are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education.

FSU offers four entry points into a BSN. The pre-licensure (generic) BSN admits students who have finished prerequisite math and science coursework, with the Upper Division running five semesters or roughly two years. Application deadlines are March 30 for fall and September 30 for spring, and the Kaplan Entrance Exam is required after application submission. The accelerated BSN serves career changers who already hold a bachelor's in another field; in October 2025, RegisteredNursing.org ranked FSU's accelerated BSN the No. 1 program of its kind in North Carolina for 2026. Cape Fear Valley Health contributed a $2 million gift to expand accelerated BSN capacity and double enrollment, and the UNC System awarded FSU a separate $2.07 million grant in 2024 to scale nursing education broadly. The RN to BSN is fully online, offered full-time over 2.5 semesters or part-time over five semesters, and is open to working RNs holding an active, unencumbered license. The MSN in Patient Safety and Quality is a 36-credit online program, with a stackable graduate certificate available for nurses who want the credential without the full master's.

Cost is one of FSU's strongest arguments for Black students weighing nursing programs. Under the NC Promise tuition plan, effective Fall 2026, full-time North Carolina undergraduates pay $500 per semester in tuition, and out-of-state undergraduates pay $3,500 per semester. The 2025-26 cost-of-attendance budget published by the Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid, which adds room, board, books, and personal expenses, totals $24,342.60 in-state on campus and $28,342.60 out-of-state on campus. Combined with FSU's HBCU mission and Title IV aid eligibility, the net price for many Black North Carolina residents is well below comparable BSN programs at private universities or non-NC-Promise UNC System campuses.

FSU sits in Cumberland County, immediately adjacent to Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, one of the largest military installations in the world. That geography shapes the student body and the nursing program. FSU reports that roughly a third of its students are military-affiliated, including active duty soldiers, veterans, reservists, spouses, and dependents. For prospective Black nursing students, this matters in three concrete ways. First, the FSU Military Scholarship covers up to $500 per semester for in-state military-affiliated undergraduates and up to $2,500 per semester for out-of-state military-affiliated undergraduates meeting the 2.5 GPA threshold; it stacks with Pell, scholarships, and GI Bill benefits. Second, FSU participates in the Yellow Ribbon Program for veterans with 100% Post-9/11 GI Bill eligibility, which can cover full tuition. Third, the School of Nursing runs the Veterans in the Community (VACOM) project, a three-year initiative funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration that recruits veterans into the undergraduate nursing pipeline and pairs them with community-partner mentorship. FSU also operates a Fort Bragg Learning Center and a Military Affiliated and Veteran Student Resource Center with dedicated certifying officials and a veterans lounge.

Clinical training centers on the Cape Fear Valley Health system, the region's largest hospital network, with which FSU has both a major philanthropic relationship and a clinical-placement partnership. Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Liberty serves as a separate teaching hospital with an established orthopedic residency tied to Cape Fear Valley; FSU's School of Nursing does not publish a complete clinical-site roster on its public pages, so prospective students should request the current affiliation list from the program. Population-health rotations include underserved and rural communities across Cumberland and surrounding counties, which gives Black students hands-on exposure to the maternal, cardiac, and chronic-disease disparities they will likely confront in practice.

NCLEX-RN outcomes have been competitive. FSU's School of Nursing publicly reports that pre-licensure pass rates have ranged between 80 and 100 percent in recent years, with a 100 percent first-time pass rate cited for fall 2018 and a 95.24 percent rate cited for the May 2024 graduating cohort of 23 students. The most recent first-time pass rate published by the North Carolina Board of Nursing was not retrievable from a primary source at the time of writing, so prospective applicants should request the current NCBON figure directly when evaluating programs.

For prospective Black students, the case for FSU's Department of Nursing rests on four pillars: it is an HBCU, the tuition floor under NC Promise is among the lowest in the country for a four-year BSN, the accelerated BSN is the top-ranked accelerated track in the state for 2026, and the veteran pipeline through VACOM is unusual nationally and uniquely suited to Black service members transitioning out of Fort Liberty. To apply or request more information, contact Cecilia Truesdale-Little at ctruesdalelittle@uncfsu.edu or 910-672-1120 for the pre-licensure BSN, Josephine Moore at jsmoore@uncfsu.edu or 910-672-1811 for the accelerated BSN, or Elizabeth Abruzzese at eaabruzzese@uncfsu.edu or 910-672-1104 for the online RN to BSN.