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When Colorado college and university leaders penned their annual funding letter to the Joint Budget Committee in December, one signature was conspicuously missing: that of Colorado Mesa University’s president.
CMU’s absence was a departure from recent tradition, in which Colorado’s institutions of higher education try to present a united front to the state legislature in their annual budget request.
This year’s letter, signed by 14 college leaders, asked for an $80 million increase in state funding, a 5.2% bump over last year. Gov. Jared Polis requested a $12 million increase, but it was offset by other cuts in his proposal. If the legislature enacted all of his requests, it would result in a slight reduction in state support for higher education, according to JBC documents.
For Colorado Mesa leaders, neither proposal was acceptable.
“The message in that letter is if you fund us in this way, we can hold tuition to this level and things are good,” John Marshall, the university’s president, told the JBC in a Friday hearing.
“For our institution, that’s just not true. We continue to fall further and further and further behind.”
Located in Grand Junction, Colorado Mesa stands out from other institutions across the state — in good ways and bad.
Marshall told the Joint Budget Committee that his university is bucking a statewide trend of declining enrollment, welcoming its largest class of first-year students ever last fall. Since 2000, Mesa’s in-state undergraduate enrollment has grown 68%, from 3,685 to 6,185 in 2024. In that same period, the average four-year school in Colorado has grown in-state enrollment by just 3%, while two-year programs have grown 28%.
That stands in stark contrast to some of Colorado’s other financially struggling institutions, like Metropolitan State University in Denver, which has seen its student population plummet from its peak in 2011; today, it appears to be stabilizing at levels last seen in the 1990s.
Because few of its students come from outside the state, Colorado Mesa is more reliant on state funding to subsidize in-state tuition than Colorado’s premier research institutions, like Colorado School of Mines and CU Boulder. And CMU’s share of that funding hasn’t grown fast enough to keep up with its student growth.
In 2019, CMU received $4,473 in state funding per full-time student — $1,239 less than the average four-year institution in Colorado, according to a memo the school provided in response to JBC questions. In the 2024 fiscal year, CMU received $6,890 per student, compared with $9,154 for the average four-year school, the memo said.
That disparity has resulted in the highest ratio of staff and faculty to students in the state. CMU has nine students for every full-time staff member, while the average four-year college in Colorado has about six.
“The distribution of state funding implies that CMU students are less valuable than their counterparts at other state institutions,” CMU officials wrote in the memo.
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AN “INDEFENSIBLE” FUNDING FORMULA
Colorado Mesa University has been dissatisfied with how the state distributes higher education funding for years.
Two years ago, university leaders took matters into their own hands, defying a legislative directive to hold tuition increases below 2% for all in-state students. The JBC responded with a $50,000 fine.
This time around, university leaders are signaling early in budget discussions that they won’t be happy with a funding increase that maintains the status quo of how money is distributed — let alone the sorts of cuts that the JBC is considering.
“I think most of my colleagues would say the overall system isn’t being funded at a level that higher ed thinks it ought to be,” Marshall told the JBC. “And within that system, we are seeing funding levels that are just not appropriate, and, I would argue, not defensible.”
Colorado’s current three-step funding model was created by the legislature in 2020. Confusingly, almost all of the money comes during step two, which serves as the base operating funding for each institution. That money is allocated through a formula that considers things like enrollment, degree completion and equity considerations, such as how many students are first-generation college attendees or Pell Grant recipients. In step one, lawmakers can add money to address ongoing financial challenges at particular institutions, as the JBC did last year with a boost to some rural schools. Step three is for one-time funding boosts.
Here’s the problem, from CMU’s perspective: Step two was designed to be a stable source of funding, so year-to-year changes in performance or enrollment take awhile to result in more money. And in this year’s letter, the other college and university leaders asked for all of the $80 million funding increase to be distributed through “step two” and through financial aid, rather than through mechanisms that could be used to address funding inequities among different colleges.
Sen. Jeff Bridges, the JBC’s chair, suggested last week that the formula needs to change when it comes up for review. Unfortunately for Colorado Mesa, that isn’t until 2026 under current law.
“I have been frustrated continually in my time here that even though it’s called step two, it seems to really be step one,” said Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat. “It’s like a branding stroke of genius to say, ‘Well, step one is the things you say you care about,’ but the (budget request) letter never gets to step one until everyone gets their piece in step two.
“You can say the formula works the way it is, but you know, it’s not actually working the way that I think it was sold.”
WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEK
THE BIG STORY
Hope Scheppleman wants a job in the Trump administration. Her application is raising eyebrows.
Hope Scheppelman, vice chair of the Colorado GOP, is taking credit for Republican gains in the state House and in the 8th Congressional District in an application for a job in the new Trump administration.
“I worked alongside over 220 Republican candidates to flip three Colorado House districts and the 8th Congressional District,” Scheppelman wrote in her application.
That’s a stretch.
In the 8th District, the Colorado GOP endorsed Gabe Evans’ unsuccessful primary opponent, former state Rep. Janak Joshi. The party didn’t report any direct spending to help Evans beat Democratic incumbent Yadira Caraveo in the general election.
Evans was so fed up with party leadership that he actually called on Colorado GOP Chair Dave Williams to resign in July as part of a push to remove the organization’s entire leadership slate, including Scheppelman.
As for the three state House seats Republicans flipped last year, the party didn’t report spending any money on those races either. It was the state House Republican caucus campaign arm and independent expenditure committees that were responsible for the bulk of the activity in those contests.
“State party was about as helpful as a screen door in a submarine when it came to House races,” said Tyler Sandberg, who ran the state House GOP campaign arm. “They did literally nothing. They were nowhere to be found except when it came time to claim credit.”
Scheppelman did not return text messages or a voicemail Monday seeking comment.
Scheppelman, a nurse who lives in southwestern Colorado, wrote in her application that she’d like a job in the Trump administration combating the fentanyl crisis in the U.S. She’d specifically like to work at the Department of Health and Human Services.
“This epidemic has affected me personally, having lost a loved one to a fentanyl overdose,” she wrote. “This tragic experience, coupled with my extensive clinical background, has fueled my commitment to tackling this crisis on a larger scale.”
The application was submitted through Robert F. Kennedy’s website in anticipation that he will be confirmed as Health and Human Services secretary.
COLORADO GOP CHAIR
Darcy Schoening, the director of special initiatives at the Colorado GOP, announced Monday evening that she is running to be chair of the state party.
She announced her candidacy in an email that came from her official party email account.
“For far too long, Colorado Republicans have suffered loss after loss — whether through the ballot box, or the loss of our values and freedoms,” she said in a written statement.
Schoening joins former Routt County Treasurer Brita Horn in seeking the chair position. Former state Rep. Richard Holtorf has also vowed to run.
Current Colorado GOP Chair Dave Williams didn’t respond to a question Monday from The Colorado Sun about whether he plans to seek reelection.
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THE POLITICAL TICKER
DEMOCRATS
Colorado Democratic Party Chairman Shad Murib is supporting Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and president of the Association of State Democratic Committees, to be the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
“Ken has a strong record of accomplishments,” Murib said. “He has led his own state party to victory in difficult statewide elections year after year while building a muscular and sustainable organization. Ken knows that election results are what everyone sees on the scoreboard, but that building long-term power through organizations and movements that reflect our values is the true source of our ability to win elections.”
COLORADO HOUSE
State Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, D-Glenwood Springs, has been selected by the House Democratic caucus to serve as co-whip alongside Rep. Matthew Martinez, D-Monte Vista.
The pair are responsible for counting Democratic votes in the House.
Velasco was elected to the position after Iman Jodeh, an Aurora Democrat who held the position, resigned from the House when she was appointed to fill a vacancy in the state Senate.
COLORADO SENATE
State Sen. Iman Jodeh, D-Aurora, has been assigned to the Senate Business, Labor and Technology and Health and Human Services committees.
State Sen. Matt Ball, D-Denver, has been assigned to the State, Military and Veterans Affairs and Judiciary committees.
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