Driving Down Student Costs 

You made some major announcements in your fall State of the Campus speech about further reducing the cost of attending CU Boulder. What were the highlights?

I announced that we are eliminating $8.4 million per year in course-related and program fees for our students beginning next fall. The amount of the fees ranges from $1 per credit hour for German and Slavic languages to $1,255 per semester for the graduate clinical  Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences program.

Does this cover all fees on their tuition bill?

There are still mandatory fees for select services like the rec center, the bus and bike program and student health services.

How can the university do this?

This money will come from increased revenue thanks to higher enrollment and improved student retention. This is complemented by savings from improved campus operating efficiencies. Our Board of Regents enabled this by endorsing a multi-year tuition guarantee so we could forecast our finances to see if we could eliminate these fees.

Refresh us on the tuition guarantee.

We have a guarantee for all incoming undergraduate students, which locks tuition and mandatory fees for four years.

You made some other headline announcements in your State of the Campus as well.

We introduced the new CU Boulder Impact Scholarship, which measures a qualified applicant’s persistence to get to college despite economic circumstances.

And we are supporting our student leaders in their effort to reduce textbook costs through Open Educational �ƹ���Ƶ — shared electronic educational materials. The campus is offering to pilot this program with up to $1 million. The hope is to eventually save students hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars a year.

You’re calling these measures The Be Boulder Pact. What does that mean?

It is a pact with our students and their families to lower their cost of education. This pact helps them with financial planning and predictability, and it helps our students graduate on time with less debt. When I speak of student success, I mean success both as a student and as a graduate, something I’m very passionate about.

Illustration by Melinda Jose 

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Digits

Butterflies

4

Life stages for a butterfly

4/9

Date year-long butterfly
exhibition opened at CU
Museum of Natural History

300

Butterfly species in
Colorado (approx.)

1996

Year Colorado hairstreak
butterfly became state
insect

197

Species recorded in
Boulder County

20,000

Species in the world

3,000+

Miles some monarch
butterflies travel from the
U.S. to Mexico for winter

Making Tuition More Predictable

Planning for the cost of a CU-Boulder education will be easier for Colorado residents following the recent adoption of a new tuition and mandatory fees guarantee. Starting in fall 2016, tuition and fees for incoming freshmen who are Colorado residents will rise modestly, then remain fixed through the four-year period. Subsequent incoming classes will also see an initial increase, then no change through four years. University leaders say the new arrangement better allows students to plan for costs and CU to forecast revenues. The Board of Regents approved the plan in the spring. A four-year tuition guarantee was already in place for nonresident undergraduates. Graduate student tuition still will be reviewed each year. . 

Heard Around Campus 

"Our goal has definitely been to create a very complex picture of Boulder..." — Graduate student Rebecca Zinner (MFA’18) in the Daily Camera, speaking of a digital time capsule about CU-Boulder created by students in the College of Media, Communication and Information.

Betting Big on the Saxophone 

CU-Boulder music professor Carter Pann was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in music for his work “The Mechanics: Six from the Shop Floor.” The Pulitzer jury described the six-part saxophone composition as “a suite that imagines its four saxophonists as mechanics engaged in a rhythmic interplay of precision and messiness that is by turns bubbly, pulsing, dreamy and nostalgic.” The prize ultimately went to composer Henry Threadgill, but Pann is riding high anyway. “This is a real vote of confidence,” he said. Read the full story here. 

Photo by © iStock/Cesare Andrea Ferrari

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The CU Board of Regents narrowly approved an in-state tuition increase of 9.3 percent for the 2011-12 school year because of dwindling state funding, which is under 7 percent. A Colorado resident enrolled in the College of Arts and Sciences will pay $7,672. Historical tuition rates are shown below.

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5 Percent tuition will increase this fall for nonresident students, totaling $1,300 more for Arts & Sciences majors. 9 Percent tuition will increase this fall for instate students, an additional $572 for Arts & Sciences majors. $19,500 Average debt for a CU-Boulder student upon graduation. $23,800 Average debt for students across the nation. $16.4 million Amount campus will raise in revenue from the tuition increase.

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