Elizabeth City State University cut the ribbon Friday morning on its new $8.1 million Currituck Flight Training Center in Maple, a facility built with a taxiway running straight onto Currituck Regional Airport so student pilots can walk from classroom to cockpit. The 11 a.m. ceremony at 230 Airport Road capped years of planning for a program that has outgrown its original Elizabeth City footprint.
The North Carolina General Assembly funded the project, and Currituck County donated the land it sits on, according to Elizabeth City State University. As reported by 13News Now, the center formally opened Friday in Currituck County, giving ECSU's Aviation Science program its second hub outside Elizabeth City. The site includes roughly 4,800 square feet of classroom and office space along with two 6,600-square-foot aircraft hangars, both connected directly to the regional airport by taxiway.
A Long-Awaited Milestone for Student Pilots
For students already enrolled in the program, the ribbon-cutting wasn't just a ceremonial moment. Terendius David Jr., an aviation student and president of the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals' ECSU chapter, said the opening of the center had been a long time coming. He added that he is excited to start using the new planes at the center.
The university says it will move part of its fleet of 20 aircraft to the Currituck location and has purchased two additional FAA-approved advanced aviation training devices for use there. ECSU officials describe the center as establishing a permanent aviation training presence in Currituck County, one meant to support commercial piloting, aviation management, flight instruction and air traffic control career tracks.
Growth Numbers Tell Two Slightly Different Stories
ECSU says the new facility will help accommodate what the university calls this year's 31% enrollment growth, with Aviation Science climbing from 442 students in fall 2025 to 579 this fall. A separate account from WTKR put the program's growth at 48%, reporting that aviation has become the university's largest major outright. The two figures don't match, and neither source resolves the gap.
Either way, the surge has been enough to reshape the university's broader numbers. ECSU's total enrollment rose from 2,360 students in fall 2025 to 2,445 in fall 2026, extending what the university describes as a decade-long growth streak. WCTI12 reports the Currituck facility is expected to support aviation education at the university for years to come, and the College of the Albemarle's existing plane-maintenance program allows students to transfer credits into ECSU's track, per the same WTKR report.
Part of a Broader Push at Historically Black Colleges
ECSU's expansion lands amid a wider build-out of aviation programs at historically Black colleges and universities nationally. Tuskegee University recently launched what Black Enterprise describes as Alabama's only HBCU aviation program offering a path to pilot certification, with students able to train at Moton Field, the same grounds once used by the Tuskegee Airmen. The outlet also cited a 2022 Data USA study finding that roughly 2.59% of pilots were Black, compared with 87.1% who were white, underscoring the stakes behind these new pipelines.
In Houston, Texas Southern University opened a new aviation satellite campus at the Houston Spaceport backed by a $5.5 million investment from the City of Houston and support from the Houston Airport System, according to a report from JBHE. That facility includes a 20,000-square-foot hangar housing 12 Cirrus SR20 aircraft and 4,500 square feet of classroom and office space, a scale comparable to what ECSU just built in Maple.
Back in Currituck, ECSU's Aviation Science program is framed by the university as an important pathway into aviation-industry careers, from the cockpit to the control tower. With a taxiway now linking campus directly to Currituck Regional Airport, students like David say the long wait for a dedicated training base has finally paid off.
