FAYETTEVILLE (January 25, 2023) – When you have kids and a job, just getting to school can be a challenge.

And Fayetteville State University is taking steps to meet that challenge.

Some 46% of Fayetteville State’s students are adult learners 25 and older.

“We have to be very practical and understanding that many of our adult learners work. They have children. So how do we look to mitigate some of the challenges they have there in order to continue to get it done?” Chancellor Darrell Allison says in the accompanying video.

For example, 95% of its adult learners commute to school. So FSU plans a new, 450-space parking deck.

“We probably got more high-fives on the parking deck, as opposed to the $63 million College of Education that we’re going to be building here,” Allison says.

THE UNIVERSITY ALSO offers a five-star child-care center on campus – something Allison notes Gov. Roy Cooper highlighted in a visit last year.

“It is really meeting needs for our students and faculty, but also this region,” he says. “The waiting list is significant, but very needful – very, very needful. How do we, in a customized way, meet the needs of potential students and students that are here, that are desiring to come here, the students that are here, to get done? That’s very important.”

University officials are considering how to expand child-care offerings in FSU’s new College of Education, he says.

“When you talk about higher ed, I don’t think daycare could ever factor in, in most minds here. But we have to understand the days and times that we’re in. At Fayetteville State, we tend to be – and we must be – in that space that we understand that and appreciate that.”