The Board of Governors of the Colorado State University System today adopted a budget for the next fiscal year that reflects a return to normal operations across the entire system and its three campuses: Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CSU Pueblo, and CSU Global.
“Thanks to outstanding support from our state leaders and federal representatives, we are in a position we could not have imagined at this time last year, when we were at the front end of the pandemic,” said Kim Jordan, chair of the CSU System Board of Governors. “On behalf of the Board, I want to thank Governor Polis, the Joint Budget Committee, and the entire Colorado legislature for recognizing how important higher education is to our state’s economic recovery and quality of life.”
The nearly $1.5 billion total System budget includes state funding from the General Fund of $183.3M. It includes a 3% tuition increase for the Fort Collins and Pueblo campuses, which is the first tuition increase since the Fall 2018 semester. CSU Global tuition will not increase. The update is equivalent to an annual increase of $282.80 for a full-time CSU Fort Collins student and $238.20 for a full-time CSU Pueblo student taking 15 credits per semester, and will assist in shoring up the budget, closing revenue gaps from the pandemic year, covering remaining costs of COVID compliance, and contributing to faculty and staff salary increases averaging roughly 3%, which keeps with levels the state has ratified for all state classified employees starting July 1, 2021. Raises for non-classified staff at the Fort Collins and Pueblo campuses take effect January 1, 2022.
“This is still a recovery year, and this budget allows us to make some progress toward keeping our academic salaries competitive, while also addressing mandatory costs, inflation, and some of the parts of our campuses hit hardest by the pandemic over the last year and a half,” System Chancellor Tony Frank said. “The strategic leadership from our Board of Governors throughout the course of this crisis has helped us navigate through an unprecedented disaster and come out in solid shape on the other side.”
The budget includes $17 million in new state funding to support the remodel of the Technology Building on the CSU Pueblo campus and $541,000 to support network infrastructure upgrades in Fort Collins.
Frank applauded the leadership of CSU’s campus presidents – Joyce McConnell of Fort Collins, Timothy Mottet of Pueblo, and Pamela Toney of CSU Global. The campuses made permanent budget cuts and implemented early retirements to bring their base expenses in line with revenues severely impacted by the pandemic. The new baseline for FY22 reflects those reductions on both the Fort Collins and Pueblo campuses that were needed to get through the last fiscal year.
“Their calm and steady leadership on our campuses is really what ensured we will be able to be fully open in the fall,” he said. “And they would agree that all of us owe our largest thanks to the faculty and staff who stayed focused on our students and their education even as their own lives were upended, and to our students who have persevered in the face of challenges unimagined by previous generations.”
As part of the FY22 budget, the Board of Governors approved $12.9 million in one-time funding to help the Fort Collins campus address its revenue shortfalls for the FY22 fiscal year.
The three CSU System campuses, and the out-of-state students they attract in an average year, fuel nearly 23,000 Colorado jobs and roughly $238 million in state income and sales tax revenue annually. The campuses – the flagship research university in Fort Collins; CSU Pueblo, a regionally focused Hispanic-serving institution; and the fully online CSU Global – together enroll more than 60,000 new and returning students each year. The CSU System has nearly 300,000 living alumni worldwide.