CU Boulder’s budget is more than dollars and cents.
It’s a tool: To accomplish our mission as a public teaching
and research university; to reflect our priorities and values;
and to deliver on our strategic imperatives.
In this video, you’ll learn more about the budget and how CU Boulder is working to build
fiscal resilience.
Our key topics include: An outline of CU Boulder’s budget;
an explanation of the budget redesign; our efforts to create affordability and value
for students; and stewardship of our funding.
The CU Boulder budget consists of four types of funding:
Tuition and fees; state funds;
restricted funds; and auxiliary funds.
Tuition and fees make up most of our budget, one reason careful fiscal stewardship is so
critical.
State funds, on the other hand, usually provide about 5% of our overall budget.
In fiscal year 2021, that fell to 2%.
Restricted funds are used for specific purposes.
These funds include donor gifts; research funding, such as contracts and grants; endowments;
investments; and federal financial aid programs.
Auxiliary funds represent groups like Housing and Dining Services, the book store, Athletics,
Parking Services, and Continuing Education.
Auxiliary services operate similar to businesses, making enough money to cover their costs.
Tuition, fees and state dollars make up the General Fund.
That money goes to schools and colleges, and campus support units like Human Resources
and Faculty Affairs.
It pays for common goods such as utilities and wireless technology.
Leaders in each college, school and support unit decide how to allocate funding to their
departments and activities.
At CU Boulder, tuition pays for instruction, support activities such as academic advising,
and student support programs like disability services.
Tuition does not pay for fee-funded activities, including the Rec Center, student government,
and athletic events.
In December 2020, we launched a project to redesign our campus budget to truly reflect
our priorities and values.
In our current model, we fund colleges, schools, and administrative and support units on a
largely incremental basis, based on decisions from long ago and in different times.
In an average year, 95% of the budget rolls forward from the prior year. About 3% of additional
revenue is used to cover costs for mandatory expenses like financial aid, insurance
and compensation.
That means, in an average year, only 2 percent of the budget is available at the end of an
average year to support strategic investments.
These investments help us achieve our university’s mission and strategic goals.
Committees of faculty, staff and students are designing a new budget model to better
support our work now and into the future.
Visit our website to learn how the redesigned budget model will help us accomplish
our mission.
Our goal is to make college affordable and valuable to our whole community.
We’ve established three ways to make it easier for students and families to plan and
pay for their CU Boulder degrees:
We offer a four-year tuition guarantee to our undergraduate students.
We have eliminated course and program fees.
And we offer automatic scholarships for many students.
We continue to increase our commitment to need-based and merit-based aid.
We are proud to support and recognize the whole CU Boulder family, and all the ways
we are Buffs together.
Our campus community is truly worldwide, representing all 50 states and more than 100 countries.
And our work has a national, state and local impact.
Our faculty outreach and engagement programs reach more than 370,000 Coloradans annually.
We’re at the center of hundreds of inventions, with 141 startups formed out of CU Boulder
discoveries since 1990.
Seven hundred and eighty CU Boulder groups have competed in the New Venture Challenge.
As a Tier 1 research university, we are expanding research and creative work opportunities for
undergraduate students across all fields of study.
These efforts are made possible by aligning our financial resources with our vision: To
be a leader in addressing the humanitarian, social and technological challenges of the
21st century.
Now that you know more about CU Boulder’s
budget, we hope you stay engaged in the conversation.
Go to colorado.edu/budget to learn more.
We are Buffs, together.