Local News | Projections predict record-breaking fall enrollment at CU Boulder
Jun. 21—The University of Colorado Boulder continues to predict a 0.5% increase in enrollment this fall, equating to roughly 200 additional students and breaking records with 37,353 students overall.
Final enrollment numbers are released a few weeks into the fall semester. Chad Marturano, CU System Chief Financial Officer, is predicting overall enrollment growth at CU Boulder in the next five years.
"We forecast these five-year budgets and at Boulder, we're anticipating growth over this five-year time horizon of around 3.7% to 3%, just depending on the year," he said.
Marturano presented a budget update at the University of Colorado Board of Regents meeting in Pueblo on Friday. The Board approved the budget and approved a move of mandatory fees at CU Boulder to be included in tuition.
"Boulder is proposing shifting some of their mandatory fees into tuition and then permanently eliminating those mandatory fees, and that change will help with truth in tuition and making it more transparent for students and families," Marturano said. "It will also reduce administrative work at the campuses, and this builds on a trend at the campus in terms of decreasing fees over time."
Instead of being a separate fee, the cost would be built into tuition. It will go into effect next fiscal year if it passes in state legislation. CU President Todd Saliman said CU Boulder eliminated nearly all program and course fees a few years ago, absorbing the cost and saving students money.
"Now with this latest decision to hopefully roll some mandatory fees into tuition as well, with no impact to the student, that's going to be another step forward in terms of budget transparency and billing transparency and ease of understanding how much it costs to go to college for students and families," Saliman said.
Regent Frank McNulty noted that Marturano assured the board the fees won't later be brought back.
"I've seen in the past where entities will take fees, they'll roll them into — in this case, tuition — and then three years later they're back with the same fees. And that bait and switch never sits well with people," McNulty said.
The University of Colorado has a $6.28 billion total budget this fiscal year, a 3.5% increase from $6.07 billion last year. CU Boulder's total budget this year is $2.45 billion, a 3.8% increase from $2.36 billion from last fiscal year.
"Inflation, in the most recent calendar year in Colorado, was 5.2%," Marturano said. "So we're well below that inflationary growth."
In April, the Board of Regents approved a 3% average tuition increase this fall compared to a 4% increase last year. Students already enrolled at CU Boulder will not see an increase, due to the university's guarantee of a fixed four-year tuition rate.
"We talked about the advocacy efforts of the state capital," Marturano said, adding, "We had a really good year in higher education and saw over a $100 million increase in operating funding. And that afforded us to keep tuition on check."
Of the $107 million statewide increase, CU received a $30.1 million effective CU operating increase system-wide. There was also a $5.8 million effective CU system-wide financial aid increase, resulting from state funding. Additionally, $8.5 million in state funding was granted for six capital construction projects at CU Boulder.
At CU Boulder, state funding makes up 5.1% of the total budget at $123.9 million.
"Boulder is pretty healthy, and I think we also need to do some work in terms of how many students we can take there," Regent Glen Gallegos said.
"We got quite a bit of feedback last year about students not being accepted there, and to do something with our housing, which I think we have in the plans. So even Boulder has some issues with regard not to (lacking) kids wanting to come there, but whether or not they're getting accepted."
