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FVSU(Fort Valley State University)

School colors: Royal blue and old gold

Patton Hall at Fort Valley State University, Fort Valley, GA, US
Bubba73 (Jud McCranie), 2015-08-06, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Fort Valley, Georgia · Founded 1895 · Wildcats · Blue Machine Marching Band

Public · Four-year · ~2,800 students

www.fvsu.edu · official site

Founding

Fort Valley State University dates from November 6, 1895, when eighteen men, at least half of them formerly enslaved, petitioned the Superior Court of Houston County for a charter for the Fort Valley High and Industrial School. The court incorporated the school on January 6, 1896.

Source: Key Dates, Fort Valley State University, read 2026-09-14.

What the school says about itself

Motto
Empower the PossibleSource, read 2026-09-17.
On the record
  • it is the only university in the world which at once is a University System of Georgia institution, a historically black university , and an 1890 land-grant institution Source, read 2026-09-17.
Notable Alumni, as the school lists them
  • Austin Thomas Walden, Georgia's first black judge after Reconstruction
  • Edith Ingram Grant, Georgia's first black female judge
  • Howard Nathaniel Lee, First African American ever generally elected mayor of a majority white city in the South
  • Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, Visionary behind the Montgomery Bus Boycott
  • Calvin Smyre, Longest serving member of the Georgia legislature
  • Catherine Hardy Lavender, Olympian
  • Larry Rayfield Wright, Captain of the Dallas Cowboys, Pro Football Hall of Fame member
  • Greg Lloyd, Selected for the NFL Pro Bowl five times with the Pittsburgh Steelers
  • Lonnie Bartley, Winningest coach in the history of HBCU women's basketball
  • Dr. John Wesley Blassingame, Chair of the African-American Studies Program at Yale University from 1981-89
From Notable Alumni, Fort Valley State University, read 2026-09-17. Names as the page lists them.

On the official record

Campus address
1005 State University Dr, Fort Valley, GA 31030-4313
Control
Public
Students
~2,800 students
Directory id
139719
OPE id
00156600
Student aid
Takes part in Title IV student aid
Title III Part B list, FY 2026
Listed
Location
1005 State University Dr, Fort Valley, GA. See it on the Ledger map.
Where this location comes fromCampus location from IPEDS 2024-25This campus location comes from the federal IPEDS 2024-25 record, used as published, so the pin on the map is the campus.IPEDS Institutional Characteristics, Directory information (HD2024), 2024-25 collection, file dated 2025-09-21, retrieved 2026-09-14: coordinate 32.537595, -83.89537 as published. The Census Bureau geocoder returned No Match for the address on file, which no longer decides placement.

Across newBWS

Sources

  1. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. IPEDS Institutional Characteristics, Directory information (HD2024), 2024-25 provisional data collection. Unit id 139719. https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/datacenter/data/HD2024.zip. File dated 2025-09-21.
  2. U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education. Higher Education Programs Eligibility Matrix, sheet 'HBCU', dated 2026-06-08. https://www.ed.gov/media/document/fy-2026-higher-education-programs-eligibility-matrix-june-8-2026-114185.xlsx.
  3. Key Dates, Fort Valley State University. https://www.fvsu.edu/about-fvsu/key-dates. Read 2026-09-14.
  4. About FVSU, Fort Valley State University. https://www.fvsu.edu/about-fvsu/about-fvsu. Read 2026-09-17.
  5. Students: 2,763 total, Fall 2023 (2,558 undergraduate, 205 graduate). IPEDS Fall Enrollment 2023, derived variables (DRVEF2023). https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/datacenter/data/DRVEF2023.zip. File dated 2024-09-30, read 2026-09-17.
  6. About FVSU, Fort Valley State University. https://www.fvsu.edu/about-fvsu/about-fvsu. Read 2026-09-17.
  7. About FVSU, Fort Valley State University. https://www.fvsu.edu/about-fvsu/about-fvsu. Read 2026-09-17.
  8. Notable Alumni, Fort Valley State University. https://www.fvsu.edu/advancement/notable-alumni. Read 2026-09-17.
  9. School colors: Royal blue and old gold. Values as stated. Fort Valley State University, Wikipedia (revision 1373420629). Read 2026-09-16.
  10. Photograph: Bubba73 (Jud McCranie), 2015-08-06, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Patton_Hall_at_Fort_Valley_State_University,_Fort_Valley,_GA,_US.jpg. Retrieved 2026-09-16.
  11. U.S. Census Bureau Geocoder, batch address service, benchmark Public_AR_Current. https://geocoding.geo.census.gov/geocoder/.

Enrollment is the official 2023 count, rounded. Tap a school for its source.

Machine-readable: /api/v1/hbcus/fort-valley-state-university · All HBCUs

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