After decades of rapid growth in student tuition and fees, something extraordinary happened to the cost of a college education in Colorado over the past five years: It actually fell relative to inflation.
That’s due in large part to big jumps in state taxpayer support for higher education, the budget for which increased 30% faster than inflation since 2019, according to Joint Budget Committee staff. In that same period, average tuition rose 4.7 percentage points slower than inflation.
Now for the bad news: College tuition in Colorado remains among the highest in the country. And what little progress the state made in recent years could be short-lived.
Higher education — a frequent victim of state budget cuts in hard financial times — once again finds itself on the chopping block, as state lawmakers and Gov. Jared Polis grapple with how to close a spending gap estimated at around $750 million or more.
In a repeat of last year, Polis’ budget proposal includes only a small funding increase for colleges and universities, calling on school administrators to cut costs in order to keep tuition increases to 2.3%.
In their annual letter to the JBC, the presidents of 14 public colleges said they’d need $80 million more than the governor proposed to hold tuition growth to 2.7% for in-state and out-of-state students. Add in the $20 million Polis has proposed cutting from the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and the gap between the requests is around $100 million.
This time around, however, it’s not clear the Joint Budget Committee will come to the rescue.
DON’T MISS: 2025 will be the year of the budget cut at the Colorado Capitol
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JBC MEMBERS DIVIDED
It’s still early in budget discussions for the 2025-26 spending plan, but JBC members appear divided over how much to protect higher education from the impending fiscal bloodbath.
In a hearing last month, JBC Chair Jeff Bridges blasted college leaders for the letter, calling their budget request “tone deaf.”
“To say that we need to find another $100 million of cuts other places in our budget to keep higher ed whole, to me, is just not the right starting point,” said Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat. “I think it’s reasonable for us to ask higher ed to share in the cuts that we’re making to everyone else in the state budget.”
But the committee’s vice chair, Rep. Shannon Bird, suggested she would push to increase funding well above the governor’s request. The high cost of in-state tuition was a common complaint she heard from constituents while campaigning for re-election this fall, she said.
“People want to be able to afford to send their kids to school in Colorado, and the stories I have been told from people who couldn’t believe it that they could send their kids out of state at a lower cost than they could to have their kids go to school just up the road — it’s not right,” said Bird, a Westminster Democrat.
Despite the recent increases in higher education funding, Colorado still ranks among the lowest in the country in public support for colleges and universities.
Colorado fell in the national rankings to 48th from 47th between 2019 and 2023, according to the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, as other states stepped up their contributions.
Total spending by Colorado universities is around the national average, because they rely heavily on tuition and fees to make up for the lack of public funding. College students here pay the fourth highest tuition in the country.
“It’s a big deal,” Bird said. “So just laying my cards out candidly, I want to find a way to protect this.”
The question is how to pay for it. JBC members are also looking for ways to increase funding for K-12, while limiting cuts to Medicaid. Meanwhile, some on the budget panel say the governor’s request doesn’t cut enough ongoing spending to address the structural deficit faced by the state.
The JBC will hear from the Department of Higher Education and the colleges themselves later this week.
WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEK
MARK YOUR CALENDAR: The Colorado Sun is hosting a free, virtual legislative session preview event Jan. 16. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, Senate President James Coleman and JBC Chair Jeff Bridges are among the panelists. Sign up here to attend: coloradosun.com/events
THE BIG STORY
Jared Polis offers revised budget proposal
Gov. Jared Polis last week updated his budget request, offering plans for how to implement the state’s new school finance formula and the Proposition 130 law enforcement support fund.
“The tight budget environment we face in FY 2024-25 and FY 2025-26 requires us to make tough decisions,” Polis wrote in his latest budget letter, dated Jan. 2. “We believe, however, that these proposals strike the right balance to protect key priorities while driving efficiency and preserving fiscal discipline.”
The revised proposal, which comes out each January in order to incorporate the December revenue forecasts, also reverses some cuts and implements new ones in response to concerns raised by the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee.
Here’s a few highlights:
Proposition 130: Polis proposes pulling $350 million from the state’s $2.3 billion general fund reserve in order to implement the voter approved ballot measure to recruit and retain law enforcement. The law enforcement grants would then be doled out over the next six years.
That would reduce the rainy day fund to 12.8% of general fund appropriations, 2.2 percentage points below the current statutory requirement of 15%. Polis proposes replenishing the reserve over the next seven years in annual installments of $50 million.
School finance: Polis’ latest request would fully fund Colorado’s new school finance formula over the next six years, as initially planned by the state legislature. That’s a departure from his initial proposal in November, which would have slowed its rollout in order to reduce spending next year.
Polis also proposed cutting $12 million in funding for at-risk students, part of $42 million in cuts suggested by JBC staff that he included in his new spending plan.
In an interview, House Speaker Julie McCluskie told The Colorado Sun she was pleased to see the governor change course on the new school finance formula. But, she added, there’s more work to be done to figure out how to fund K-12 schools with declining enrollment. Polis has proposed replacing the multiyear average used today with a current-year count.
“It is hard to continue funding school districts when they’re in a declining enrollment setting. You still have teachers to pay, you still have facilities to run, you still have curriculum to buy,” McCluskie said. “We see this trend all over the nation. It’s not just here in Colorado. So I think it’s time that K-12 start thinking in more innovative ways and maybe more aggressively about how they’re going to budget for future reductions in student attendance.”
Autism treatment: Polis backed off a proposed $10 million general fund cut to pediatric behavioral therapy services provided under Medicaid. The JBC approved increasing funding for autism treatment providers unanimously last year over the administration’s objections, and bristled when Polis sought to undo a key priority of the committee with his November request.
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THE POLITICAL TICKER
COLORADO LEGISLATURE
State Rep. Iman Jodeh, D-Aurora, on Monday night was selected by a Democratic vacancy committee made up of 42 party insiders to serve as the senator for Senate District 29.
Jodeh fills the seat of Sen. Janet Buckner, who will resign Thursday after winning reelection to a four-year term Nov. 5.
Jodeh beat out two others for the position with 83% of the vote. She will have to run for reelection in two years if she wants to continue representing the district.
Another Democratic vacancy committee will now have to be convened to fill Jodeh’s seat for the next two years.
ELECTION 2026
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser’s 2026 campaign for governor says it raised nearly $160,000 in the first day after launching last week.
The money came from 1,051 individual donors, according to the campaign.
COLORADO GOP
Brita Horn, who served as Routt County treasurer from 2012 to 2018, is running to be the next chair of the Colorado GOP.
“This is about the future,” Horn, who ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer in 2018, said in a news release. “I am running for chair of the Colorado Republican Party with three key priorities: relationships, resources and responsibility. Colorado Republicans have a bright future, but only if we unite, collaborate and focus on winning elections.”
The position is up for grabs in March, when Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams’ two-year term ends. It’s unclear if Williams will run for reelection.
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