Tuition rates for new undergraduate students will increase from $13,566 to $13,973 for 30 credit hours, which is considered a full academic year. Tuition increases don’t apply to existing undergraduate students due to CU Boulder’s four-year, flat-rate tuition guarantee.
“This is always a really difficult meeting every year because I don’t think anyone at this table enjoys raising tuition,” Regent Callie Rennison said. “We’re always challenged with balancing keeping tuition low but paying our staff and faculty better.”
The University of Colorado Board of Regents approved the tuition increases, along with compensation and fee increases, at its regular board meeting on Thursday at CU Denver. CU System Chief Financial Officer Chad Marturano presented the proposed changes to the board.
“It’s important to put all of this conversation around tuition increases in context,” he said.
In the past 10 years, CU has maintained tuition rates that have stayed below inflation, Marturano said. This year, tuition rates are 5.3% below inflation. CU has also continued to invest in the financial aid it offers, more than doubling its investment over the past 10 years to $312.7 million, which exceeds the amount the state invests in all financial aid for all public institutions.
Despite the progress, Regent Wanda James said more needs to be done. She said she doesn’t think professors or staff should be losing out on pay, but she’s also hearing that students increasingly can’t afford to meet their basic needs.
“If we’re doing more with financial aid but the costs are continually going up … at some point there becomes a very uncomfortable question of how do we make it work,” James said. “Or we get to the point where only those families with excess cash will be able to send their kids to college.”
CU President Todd Saliman said the campuses have continued to work hard to improve affordability over time. He pointed to the university’s website on affordability, which shows an 8% average decrease — adjusted for inflation — in out-of-pocket costs for students and families from fiscal years 2020 to 2024. CU is always advocating for more state funding, but at the same time, it is not “waiting to be rescued” by the state, he said.
“It’s on us to figure this out, and it’s on us to deliver for students and families in Colorado, and that’s why we’re trying to think creatively about how college can cost less,” Saliman said.
CU Boulder Chancellor Justin Schwartz said that while tuition rates are increasing, the campus, at the same time, has increased student aid this year by more than this year’s tuition increase.
“Our commitment to efficient operation and asking the question of ‘Do we really need to spend that?’ is something we take very seriously,” Schwartz said.
The regents also approved compensation increases, and CU Boulder will increase pay for eligible classified staff as required by the state through a step payment plan. The campus will also implement a 1% merit salary pool for university faculty and staff, an investment of about $7.5 million. CU Boulder also has two budget initiatives this upcoming fiscal year in addition to the merit pool, which allocates $15.9 million for compression, retention and adjustment pay and $3.5 million for faculty compensation tied to tenure and promotion.
Mandatory student fees will not increase at CU Boulder. Standard room and board in a residence hall is increasing by $370 per term, or 4%. The rate for graduate and family housing apartments is increasing by $48 per month, or 3%. The rate for Bear Creek apartments is increasing between $154 and $438 per term, depending on the type of unit, equating to an increase between 2.8% and 10.7%.
This fall, CU Boulder is anticipating a 1.3% increase in student enrollment, equating to 494 additional students for a total predicted enrollment of 39,302. Enrollment numbers for each year are finalized a few weeks into the fall semester.
“The majority of enrollment growth at CU Boulder is happening on the undergraduate side,” Marturano said, noting that undergraduate student enrollment is projected to increase by 1.7%.
Also contributing to the enrollment increase are continuing students, who are projected to increase by 2.2% due to larger incoming classes and improved retention. Graduate student enrollment is expected to decrease by 0.8%, with the largest decreases coming from out-of-state and international students. Undergraduate international students are projected to increase by 1.4%, which equates to an additional nine students.
CU Boulder had an operating budget of $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2025 to 2026 and anticipates nearly $1.3 billion in revenue for the upcoming year.
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