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Dive Brief:
- The Colorado State University System’s board on Thursday approved a fiscal 2027 budget that trims tens of millions of dollars in spending at its two physical campuses.
- CSU’s main campus in Fort Collins will see $35.8 million in “strategic cuts” — including staff layoffs representing 0.5% of the workforce — and another $3 million saved by eliminating vacant positions, according to a Thursday news release from the board.
- The austerity measures come as the state’s fiscal 2027 budget keeps higher education funding flat and caps tuition increases at 3.5% for in-state students at public colleges.
Dive Insight:
Colorado’s state budget — with a projected $1.5 billion deficit that had to be filled to satisfy a constitutional mandate for a balanced budget — had a trickle-down effect on its colleges.
Amy Parsons, president of CSU at Fort Collins, said in April that the state’s flat higher ed funding was “better than we initially anticipated.” But, she said, it did not keep up with cost increases and so represents “a real reduction in resources.”
In shrinking the budget, the campus aimed to keep financial aid tied to tuition costs, “ensuring that students with the greatest need are held harmless,” Parsons said at the time. The campus also increased by 3% the pool for faculty and staff merit raises while maintaining student services that support persistence and graduation, she noted.
CSU Pueblo also turned to layoffs — the equivalent of nearly nine full-time staff positions — to help close a $2.4 million structural deficit, campus President Rhonda Epper said late last month. Additionally, the campus closed another eight vacant positions, reorganized units and slashed its athletics budget by $1 million.
The campus at the same time raised tuition 3.5% for in-state students and 5% for out-of-state students.
“Challenges in higher education remain,” Epper said in an April 29 budget update to the CSU Pueblo community. “We are facing a time where colleges and universities across the nation are under great pressure from budgetary constraints, a tight competitive market, and some negative narratives about the value of higher education in the popular media.”
Enrollment in the CSU system has been relatively healthy in recent years. CSU Fort Collins has seen modest growth, with fall headcount rising 2% to 34,096 students between 2019 and 2024, according to federal data. CSU Pueblo’s fall enrollment fell 3.2% to 6,851 students during that time — a relatively small drop compared to what some other regional public universities have experienced.
Public universities elsewhere in Colorado and in other states are also grappling with decreased or flat appropriations as lawmakers cut budgets. The University of Colorado system last month increased tuition for incoming undergraduates at its main campus to help manage the lack of state funding growth. The CU system has so far not announced big budget cuts, however.
But both the University of Maryland and Bowie State University recently announced layoffs as Maryland cut higher ed funding to manage a sizable state budget hole.
In fiscal 2025, enrollment at public colleges outpaced state and local support, leading to a 1% year-over-year decrease in per-student funding — the first such decline in more than a decade — according to the latest annual State Higher Education Finance report. Rob Anderson, president of State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, said in April that the decline could portend that “we are moving into a period of increased volatility.”
