Chalkbeat

A new Colorado report is unlikely to quiet renewed national debate about test-optional admissions

2026-08-28T22:00:52+00:00

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Making standardized test scores optional for college admissions in Colorado hasn’t hurt students and may have helped increase applications and admissions, according to a new state report.

In 2020, Colorado lawmakers temporarily allowed four-year institutions to stop using national assessments such as the SAT or ACT to determine eligibility for high school seniors graduating in 2021. A year later, lawmakers made that policy permanent.

The July analysis comes during a renewed national debate over test-optional admissions policies, which became widespread during the pandemic. About 90% of universities nationwide for fall 2027 will maintain a test-optional approach like the policy in Colorado, according to FairTest, a national nonprofit that advocates against the use of tests in admissions.

The report says many of the findings remain inconclusive due to the influence of COVID on students’ college decisions. Some students chose to defer college or skip altogether.

Despite the reliability of the pandemic-era data, the report points to some possible benefits, such as clearing barriers to enrollment, said Carl Einhaus, Colorado Department of Higher Education chief student success and academic affairs officer. First‑time freshman acceptances increased from 101,208 in 2019 to 124,617 in 2021.

And the policy certainly hasn’t harmed students, he said.

“We don’t see anything alarming in terms of a negative impact on retention, enrollment, and so forth,” Einhaus said. “So I think that that is a potential positive.”

Since tests became optional in 2021, freshman acceptance rates increased across racial groups, including among Black and Hispanic students, according to the report.

The report also found that more students returned during their second year among those who did and did not submit test scores. The rate jumped to 72.6% in 2021, up from 45.5% in 2019. Students who submitted scores still had higher retention rates, which increased from 74.8% in 2019 to 78.6% in 2021.

Several universities reported that test-optional policies have prompted a greater reliance on high school grades to determine student college readiness — a point that is central to the national debate about rolling back test-optional admissions policies.

Some Colorado university officials said the test-optional policy didn’t impact their admissions operations. Total applications to Colorado schools increased from 134,748 to 153,441, driven mostly by a 469.4% increase in students who didn’t submit a test. More than 98,482 students didn’t submit.

The University of Colorado Boulder, for example, has maintained a holistic admissions approach, and students can choose whether to submit test scores. The school looks at “the full picture of each applicant and a range of academic and other factors that can help us assess their potential to succeed in our academic environment,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

Colorado Mesa University President John Marshall said that while he agrees that tests don’t determine success, the reliance on grades has created more work for his university as it determines what academic support students need.

“We have some academic preparation holes that often have nothing to do with kids, it’s just where they grew up,” he said. “For whatever shortcomings these tests have, one of the things they do a good job is shining a light on some of those holes.”

Marshall said he’s seen more incoming freshmen who aren’t ready for college since the switch to test-optional admissions. Those students must take a pre-college assessment to determine whether they are prepared for certain courses, he said.

This is a similar argument to faculty in the University of California system, who have said restoring testing requirements would help determine academic readiness and could help identify students who might need additional support.

Some elite institutions reverted to requiring tests after the pandemic, citing research that said test scores can help predict student success in college.

Akil Bello, FairTest’s admissions testing policy expert, said in a Wednesday news release that other studies show “high school GPA is still the best indicator of college success except perhaps at a handful of unique institutions.”

Correction: Aug. 28, 2026: This story has been corrected to clarify that applications and admissions may have increased since Colorado colleges went test optional, not enrollment.

Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.

Trump administration higher education letter: Most Colorado universities have yet to decide response

2026-08-25T16:41:43+00:00

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At least one Colorado university says it doesn’t intend to answer a Trump administration questionnaire sent to colleges and universities earlier this month that federal officials said will build trust with the American people.

Other institutions of higher education in the state, including Colorado’s two largest public university systems, said they haven’t decided if they will respond to the questions in the letter from U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon. The letter asks officials about their approach to free speech, research, admissions, campus protests, and more. McMahon also asked them to post their answers prominently on their schools’ websites by the end of the year.

The letter doesn’t include threats regarding investigations or funding, unlike the administration’s previous attempts to exert influence, and overall it strikes a relatively collaborative tone. Yet it represents the latest test for higher education leaders as Trump officials look to shape college campus policy across the country, and at a time when Americans’ confidence in higher education is low.

Many of the questions in the Aug. 3 letter address issues typically decided by individual campuses, their leaders, and faculty.

A Colorado Mesa University spokesperson said the school does not plan to formally respond to the letter.

“The public record of why and how we deliver on our mission already demonstrates our commitment,” a Colorado Mesa University spokesperson said. ”How we serve students every day is the reaffirmation.”

Neither the Colorado State University System nor the University of Colorado System said whether they would formally respond. Together, the systems represent seven universities in the state, including in Fort Collins and Boulder.

A CU System spokesperson said the school is reviewing the letter, as did a CSU System spokesperson.

“Our institutions’ commitments to rigorous teaching, impactful research, and service to Colorado and the nation are longstanding and demonstrated daily,” said Tiana Kennedy, CSU and CSU System associate vice president for communications.

Other universities, including the Colorado School of Mines and Adams State University, also said they were reviewing the letter.

Metropolitan State University of Denver didn’t say whether it was considering the letter, but a spokesperson said that the school has long focused on many of the issues highlighted by McMahon.

“We remain committed to delivering value for students and taxpayers, preparing graduates to succeed in a changing economy and contributing to the communities we serve,” said Tim Carroll, a school spokesperson.

Colorado Western University and Fort Lewis College didn’t respond to a request for comment. The Colorado Community College System didn’t return a request by deadline.

Nationwide, schools in North Carolina and Florida have decided to answer McMahon’s call. And other universities, such as in Iowa, have been pressured by lawmakers to respond. Others haven’t said what their intentions are.

McMahon’s letter was written with input from the American Association of Universities, according to an Inside Higher Ed report. The association represents 71 of the nation’s most influential research universities, including the University of Colorado Boulder. But other groups representing some of the same institutions in Colorado are questioning the letter’s approach.

The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities said land grant universities “already work every day to meet goals outlined in the Department’s letter.” The organization’s members include several Colorado universities, including CSU Fort Collins, CU Boulder, and the Colorado School of Mines.

The Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges also raised concerns, saying the responsibility of university improvements rests with governing boards and institutional leaders.

And the American Association of University Professors, a national faculty union, slammed the letter and said it asks “colleges and universities to align themselves with a far-right agenda at the expense of students’ education and the public’s well-being.”

David Baime, senior vice president for government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges, called the questionnaire confusing.

Baime, whose association says it represents 15 member colleges in Colorado, wrote that much of the letter focused on “elite research institutions” but not others, including community colleges.

How much do students trust higher ed leaders?

2026-08-19T22:43:02+00:00

Higher education has had a public perception problem for years. Annual surveys show that despite a recent rebound, the sector suffers from a general lack of trust.

But a new survey shows students, at least, have more trust in higher education leaders.

New survey data from Lumina Foundation and Gallup finds 55% of students believe their school’s leadership usually makes decisions that are in students’ best interests. The rest expressed reservations, saying they thought leaders acted in their best interest sometimes, rarely, or never. (Lumina is a funder of Chalkbeat. See our funders here, and read our ethics policy here.)

Read the rest of this month’s edition.

Colorado’s PSAT and SAT 2026 scores: How did your school or district perform?

2026-08-19T19:00:00+00:00

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Colorado eleventh graders lost some ground on SAT math and reading and writing tests this year, but ninth and tenth graders posted gains on both subjects on the PSAT.

The combined results paint a mostly positive picture for student learning in math and reading in high school, with students in 11th grade still performing better overall than they did two years ago. However, state officials said the groups of students who have historically underperformed still lag behind.

“The overall story of this year’s assessment release is one of progress, but also one of continued work ahead,” said Christina Wirth-Hawkins, the Colorado Department of Education’s chief assessment officer.

The department released statewide assessment data on Wednesday afternoon, a trove of information that includes how students performed on the national standardized tests taken this spring. Colorado measures how well students are learning in subjects by looking at the PSAT and SAT rather than using its own state-created assessment.

The drops on SAT math and reading and writing show students backslid slightly.

See how your school or district did on the CMAS

On the 11th grade SAT math test, 31.6% of students scored proficient, a drop of .9 percentage points compared to last year. Students exceeded 2024 measures by .5 percentage points.

On the SAT reading and writing sections, student achievement dropped 2 percentage points compared to last year, falling to 59.6% of students rated as proficient. That’s ahead of the 57.6% posted in 2024.

Wirth-Hawkins called the spring PSAT results “encouraging” because of the overall increases.

Students scored higher overall on 10th grade PSAT tests compared to the year before. Ninth graders also posted higher overall scores on PSAT math tests but only recorded a .2 percentage point increase on the reading test.

Wirth-Hawkins said the year-over-year growth on the PSAT reveals that there are still achievement gaps, including among different student racial ethnicities and those from lower-income backgrounds.

“Substantial differences in performance remain among student groups,” she said. “So, improvement in the overall percentage of students meeting or exceeding expectations does not mean that the gaps have disappeared.”

On all tests, white and Asian students continue to post much higher scores than their Black, Hispanic, and Native American peers.

For example, on the PSAT grade 10 reading and writing test, 78,9% of white and 76.1% of Asian students scored proficient. But only 40% of Hispanic, 44% of Native American, and 45.1% of Black students scored proficient on that test.

Students who qualify for free or reduced lunch also consistently scored about 30 points lower on SAT and PSAT math and reading and writing tests than other students.

As more Colorado students take college-level classes, a report says it’s time to make improvements

2026-08-18T20:42:07+00:00

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About 40% of Colorado’s community college enrollment is made up of high school students earning college credits, part of a nationwide rise in younger students enrolled in college-level courses. But a recent report finds that Colorado and other states still face significant challenges in making sure those students get the most out of the experience.

The report from the Community College Research Center at the Teachers College, Columbia University says growth doesn’t equate to program quality, and states should rethink policies to support high school students who are dual enrolled.

The report’s observations match some of the challenges Colorado has faced with these programs, including the need for more funding and coming up with ways to ensure that the credits students earn put them on a clear college or career path.

Colorado lawmakers created the state’s concurrent enrollment program in 2009 so that high school students can get exposure to college courses and earn credits that transfer to a two- or four-year university, saving them money on tuition. Colorado also offers online options. The number of Colorado students participating has steadily increased in recent years.

About 78,000 students took a college-level course in 2025, according to Colorado Department of Higher Education numbers. And about 40,000 of those Colorado high school students were considered dual-enrolled at a community college in fall 2025, meaning they take one or more classes while in high school, according to Colorado Community College System numbers. That number increased by more than 3,000 students compared to the previous fall.

Some students even finish college while in high school, with a recent report showing about 3.4% of the class of 2022 earning a degree.

But Bobby Pace, Colorado Community College System interim vice Chancellor for academic and student affairs, said there is room for improvement.

“It’s interesting to know that Colorado, we’re not alone in this, and that no state has quite gotten it quite right,” Pace said.

The report offers five areas where states can strengthen dual enrollment for students and includes recommendations related to each.

The five areas include a call for states to improve academic, financial, and career advising support; track student data more comprehensively; and ensure these programs enable students to earn credits that align to their interests.

For example, the authors say many of the programs focus on general college courses instead of career or college pathways, a pattern they describe as “random acts of dual enrollment.”

Pace believes many states, including Colorado, are thinking about how to tailor programs so students aren’t just accumulating credits but graduating with what they need to get ahead in college. This would improve eventual degree attainment that leads to jobs, he said.

“I think that’s that fundamental shift that states are now going to be looking at,” he said.

The Colorado Department of Education has already enacted some of the other recommendations in the report and is working toward getting every high school student enrolled in at least one college class, earning 12 college credits, or enrolling in a work-based learning opportunity before graduation.

A spokesperson said CDE is working to develop additional resources to help schools, counselors, students, and families understand concurrent enrollment and which credits transfer to colleges and universities. The department is also working with the higher education on dual enrollment pathways, according to the spokesperson.

The programs are also mostly low cost for students, but the research center shows that Colorado ranks among states with low funding for dual or concurrent enrollment programs. That means some students must still pay for books and fees.

Pace said that in recent years, racial and socioeconomic disparities have popped up in who is earning credits through dual enrollment. He sees room for the state to improve student support resources within districts and when students matriculate to college.

“No model that we have in the state currently has the wraparound student support that may be necessary,” he said.

This story has been updated to include numbers from the Colorado Department of Higher Education and a response from the Colorado Department of Education.

144,000 Coloradans are in student loan default as repayment struggles increase nationwide

2026-08-12T15:30:00+00:00

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Violet Knowles said her $3,678.69 in student loan debt is haunting her like a specter.

Violet and her husband Stellan Knowles, both 24, said they’ve tried to pay off the debt, which was borrowed by her mom. But they were stymied by technical difficulties in setting up their account with the debt servicer.

“We’d be on hold for hours,” Violet said, “and then eventually the phone line would just click.”

In April, the notice of default came.

Nationwide since 2024, there’s been a surge of borrowers like Violet who have missed nine months of payments, with many more borrowers at risk of ending up in the same spot. The consequences of falling behind can disrupt lives, ruin credit ratings, and mean the debt could be sent to collections.

The number of borrowers whose loans are in default jumped by more than 4.2 million to around 9.5 million from April 2025 to March 2026, according to an Associated Press analysis. The increase includes many borrowers who got off track in 2024, when loan payments started coming due again after a pandemic-era freeze.

In Colorado, the analysis shows 58,000 more Coloradans defaulted on their loans during the same time period, a 67% increase that brought the total number of residents in default to 144,000.

“I am seeing despair and outrage and despondency and just a very wide mix of pretty extreme emotions the likes of which I have not seen before,” said Alan Collinge, the founder of Student Loan Justice, a student loan borrower advocacy organization, and the author of “The Student Loan Scam.”

As a pandemic relief measure, the federal government allowed borrowers to suspend student loan payments until 2023, and President Joe Biden’s administration provided a one-year grace period after that. That ended in fall 2024, allowing loans to enter into default after nine months of missed payments.

Today more than 1 in 5 borrowers are in default, including those whose loans were well past due before the pandemic, according to the AP analysis. The previous record for borrowers in default was 8 million in December 2019.

Federal data shows that many borrowers are struggling to pay their loans but aren’t yet in default. About 870,000 borrowers have loans between 181 and 270 days late — on the edge of default — according to the AP analysis.

For Violet and Stellan Knowles, the debt has added another layer of stress.

The Knowleses moved from Memphis, Tennessee, to Aurora, Colorado, in August 2024. With the shuffle, Violet lost track of when the notices for payment started coming in from attending college in Illinois, which she never finished. Stellan said he believes the letters came just after the pandemic-era freeze on payments.

The Knowleses said that financial challenges have made it difficult to get a handle on the debt.

Stellan said the cost of living is far more expensive in Colorado than in Memphis, and only he can work. Violet, who said she has a disability, needed to take time off from a job. The two have used Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits to help them get by.

“The cost of living has been brutal,” Stellan said. “Everything goes to rent, and there’s pennies to spare to go to all the other expenses.”

Stellan said the lack of access to the student loan account has been the biggest issue. The monthly payment was $250 a month at first. Then the monthly ask started to rise.

“And even though we’ve always had limited income, that was definitely doable, and I was willing to pay that,” he said.

Stellan and Violet said they’re lucky the federal government isn’t garnishing wages right now. They want to consolidate the debt, which will allow them to start payments. Violet will also start a job with AmeriCorps this week, and she plans to use an education stipend to help pay her loans and finish college.

For now, the student loan debt will haunt Violet and Stellan for a while longer.

“I want to pay it off,” she said, “because I want it gone.”

Colorado public colleges and universities try to keep student services safe from budget ‘belt tightening’

2026-08-07T21:27:38+00:00

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Staff reductions at the Colorado School of Mines. About $54 million in cuts at Colorado State University Fort Collins. And tapping endowment funds to sustain scholarships for students with farmer worker or migrant backgrounds at Adams State University.

These decisions reflect a broader reality facing Colorado’s public colleges and universities where campus leaders have needed to turn an eye toward stabilizing finances amid numerous fiscal pressures.

Institutions in Colorado and nationally are confronting projected enrollment declines, the loss of federal grants under the Trump administration, and rising inflation. The state kept its higher education operations budget flat for the 2027 fiscal year, although lawmakers also cut some statewide grant programs used by colleges and universities.

Together, those pressures have prompted what many campus leaders describe as “belt-tightening” measures.

Leaders say they’re trying to preserve key services to students, but pressure on those programs is growing. In addition, this year the state allowed schools to raise tuition by up to 3.5% at four-year universities and 5% at community colleges for this fiscal year. While school leaders have said they want to keep tuition low, a higher tuition burden on students risks pushing them out of state or away from college, even though many never pay full price.

Colorado funds higher education at some of the lowest rates in the country, with students paying more for college tuition and fees than in many other states. But the recent moves by the state’s public colleges and universities are part of a larger pattern.

University of Tennessee Knoxville’s Robert Kelchen, a higher education finance expert, said the combination of factors like enrollment decline and federal uncertainty have caused many college and university leaders to cut personnel to save money. Students, he said, aren’t likely to feel as much of an impact yet, but the fiscal challenges are expected to last for several years.

“In the longer term, that will create concerns about: Can students access certain majors? Will they have academic advising available? And just will they have the resources that they need to succeed?” he said.

Heather Heersink, Adams State University chief financial officer, said Alamosa-area students are incredibly sensitive to tuition increases, and she said school leaders tried to keep costs down by dipping into reserves as rising inflationary pressures have squeezed the school’s budget.

“We haven’t had to do cuts or layoffs, but we’ve been really evaluating every budget decision with a fine-tooth comb,” said Heersink.

For Heersink, one priority is to try to maintain student services whenever possible, she said.

For example, Adams State has used a one-time infusion of foundation funds to prop up College Assistance Migrant Program scholarships. The school recently lost about $475,000 in federal funding for these scholarships, which support first-year students who come from migrant and seasonal farmworker backgrounds.

The school also lost $2.4 million of a $3 million federal five-year Ascender grant, which the school received to improve college preparation, student advising, and cultural understanding, according to a school spokesperson.

Other school leaders have confronted similar issues.

CU Boulder’s largest budget reductions came from a projected decrease of 9%, or about $60.4 million, in research grants due to less federal funding, said Nicole Cousins, a school spokesperson.

She said the school has had 59 research award terminations or stop-work orders since the start of 2025.

Meanwhile, the entire Colorado State University System made cuts. The CSU System cited flat state funding and growing uncertainty around federal research support as key drivers of recent budget decisions.

CSU Fort Collins, the system’s largest university with roughly 34,000 students, made the biggest reductions. The university’s explanation of the budget shows the school faced a budget hole ranging from $38 million to $48 million for the 2026-27 school year.

The school enacted a 3% salary increase, but still cut about $54 million, according to a news release.

The school cut 160 vacant and filled positions, with more than half administrative positions. A school budget presentation from May shows these affected about .5% of the workforce.

In making these decisions, the budget document says that school leaders’ priorities included the raises, as well as “financial aid and student success, retention, and completion.”

Colorado School of Mines officials said in a statement that June cuts, which included a 1% reduction to its 1,600 employees, would generate roughly $17 million in savings over a two-year period. These changes included shuttering the school’s dental clinic which provided services to students, a move that was first reported by 9News.

School representatives said these cuts were driven by factors that include declining enrollment projections and changes to international student visa processing.

Even at schools where cuts weren’t necessary, school leaders say they’re keenly aware of the budget pressures.

Metropolitan State University of Denver has increased student enrollment and raised tuition by 3.5% for the 2026-27 school year and is in a strong financial position, said a spokesperson. But he added that “continued pressure on Colorado’s state budget could create challenges for higher education funding statewide.”

Heersink of Adams State noted that the university’s budget maneuvers this year are only a stopgap.

“We have tapped every pool available to us,” she said.

Correction: Aug. 10, 2026: Colorado State University cut 160 positions that included filled and unfilled positions. The original version said those positions were filled.

Colorado will select training programs for new Pell initiative. But data shows a ‘mixed bag’ in outcomes.

2026-07-31T21:40:59+00:00

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Low-income students in Colorado will soon be eligible for short-term job training through an expansion of Pell Grants, the federal program that provides need-based aid for higher education.

But it’s unclear whether the new Workforce Pell program will deliver quick access to high-wage, high-demand careers, as its supporters envision.

Explore The HEA Group and Open Campus data

An analysis by research firm The HEA Group and Open Campus Media found that earnings outcomes vary dramatically across Colorado’s job certificate programs, with about one-third failing to produce higher wages than a high school diploma alone four years after graduation.

Colorado officials soon will decide which certificate programs will be eligible for Workforce Pell. To be included, programs must be accredited, have a documented history in the state, and students must make a higher income than the basic cost of living plus the tuition they paid.

Michael Itzkowitz of The HEA Group said the data his organization compiled should help state leaders understand that helping students get what they need from these types of programs will require plenty of evaluation.

The data shows most graduates from Colorado’s certificate programs earn more than their peers with just a high school degree. But the geographic region, program size, and school students attend factor into the wages they earn, Itzkowitz said.

“I think it’s a pretty good starting point for folks as the state policymakers are wondering what programs do we make eligible for this new program,” Itzkowitz said.

The state will take applications for eligible state Workforce Pell training programs through Aug. 15. Once programs are selected, Workforce Pell is expected to grant students about $2,200 a year for their education.

Already, Colorado leaders have expressed concerns about different program outcomes for students. A Colorado Department of Higher Education spokesperson said state leaders want programs that “ensure Workforce Pell investments actually provide value for learners and employers.”

The HEA data shows numerous examples of what Itzkowitz described as a “mixed bag” in Colorado, with results varying drastically for students.

In the case of a dental support services certificate, a student graduating from Pueblo Community College in the southern part of the state can earn a median salary of $64,622. Meanwhile, someone with that same certificate from Concorde Career College in Aurora, a private for-profit school in metro Denver, earns a median salary of $36,010.

President of Concorde Colleges Kevin Prehn didn’t address the lower pay of some of the schools’ programs, but said in a statement “an incredible amount of research” goes into selecting its programs, and college leaders seek to prop up programs with high growth and wage potential.

In another example of variability within the state, Pima Medical Institute’s graduates have some of the highest wage potential among all nursing certificate programs. The data shows median earnings of about $73,000 a year. The same program at different schools can show annual median wage disparity as high as $20,000. And it’s unclear why these differences exist.

Itzkowitz said the state can also use this data to articulate what it doesn’t want to see.

Programs like cosmetology are popular with students, but the HEA data shows it’s one of the most likely programs to leave students worse off financially.

Itzkowitz said “some institutions will often offer credentials where there aren’t available jobs or enough available jobs within the geographic region that they’re offering, so they’re just pumping out credentials.”

Colorado Mesa University President John Marshall agreed that the issues Itzkowitz flagged are problems that schools should evaluate.

CMU Tech, a division of the college that offers certificates and associate degrees, has several programs that have done a better job of helping graduates earn some of the highest average earnings in the state, the data shows.

Part of the school’s success has been eliminating programs where there is no longer a need, such as an oil field services certificate program the school stopped offering in recent years, Marshall said.

Marshall said finding dedicated professionals to teach these classes also has to be paramount but can be difficult and will affect program quality.

And Colorado Mesa leaders work to market to students about professions they never knew existed instead of funneling them into programs that don’t improve earnings.

Marshall said some of his top programs for earnings might be harder to explain, like machining, but the school is committed to “helping our kids see what the possibilities are, and how that is translating into marketable skills for them.”

Itzkowitz said the challenges schools face with the programs is why he shares a reserved optimism about what’s possible in training more students through Workforce Pell.

“This isn’t the silver bullet,” he said. “As nothing ever is.”

Prop NN proponents believe the time is right to raise funding for schools after failed efforts

2026-07-17T23:37:33+00:00

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This time will be different.

At least that’s the hope of supporters of Proposition NN, a ballot measure to raise funding for schools. They launched a statewide “yes” campaign on Friday to raise support for the measure.

The November ballot measure represents the fifth attempt in the last decade to ask Colorado voters to make tax changes that would raise more money for public education, among other things. Each of the three previous ballot measures were defeated. Another proposed measure in 2022 never made the ballot.

The revenue from Prop NN would be used to increase teacher salaries, reduce class sizes, and invest in career and technical education. Extra revenue would also be used for other state spending.

More than 100 supporters, who gathered in front of the castle-like West High School near downtown Denver, said they believe Coloradans have finally grown tired of underfunded schools. In recent years, lawmakers have wrangled steep budgetary cuts but continued investments in public education. However, state studies show Colorado needs billions more to adequately fund its schools.

Joshua Duran, a shop teacher at Denver’s Skinner Middle School, said teachers across the state face hardships that he believes voters will find sympathetic. He works about 16 to 20 hours a week driving an Uber to supplement his teaching salary. He also works with his father in the summer installing custom cabinetry and remodeling bathrooms.

That has meant long hours away from his family. The stress sometimes makes it difficult to do his best for his students, he said. The money from Prop NN would help pay his salary, but also go toward bettering instruction and resources in schools, he said.

“I just feel like the mood is different this time,” he said. “We’ve been trying forever, but I think that the time is right.”

Kevin Vick, president of the Colorado Education Association, the largest teachers union in the state, said their polling shows there’s support statewide to raise money for education.

Other issues facing schools include high teacher turnover, teacher wages that aren’t competitive enough, and large class sizes, he said.

“We think voters see that this is needed and it’s time,” Vick said.

The union planned the measure, which lawmakers put on the Nov. 3 ballot.

Prop NN asks voters to allow the state for 10 years to keep some or all of the revenue that would otherwise be refunded under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, which caps government spending.

A state legislative analysis shows the measure could raise billions more for schools.

Like previous ballot initiatives, the measure faces opposition from many conservative leaders, some who have said the measure represents a hit to Coloradans’ wallet. And conservative groups, such as the Independence Institute, have called the measure a de facto tax increase because it cuts TABOR refunds.

The measure is projected to reduce the TABOR refund of a taxpayer who makes $100,000 a year in 2027 by $28, or $56 for a joint filer, according to a draft legislative council ballot measure explainer.

Parents and school board members at the Yes for Colorado Kids rally on Friday said they’ll work hard to help voters understand why Prop NN is needed, despite losing some of their TABOR refunds.

Jeffco Public Schools parent Jen Wilson said she wants voters to know that her PTA has raised thousands a year to support her kids’ schools with classroom supplies and other materials. But next year, the schools still are scaling back mental health resources for kids, she said.

“We had a shooting at our Evergreen High School last year,” she said. “I feel like if we had more mental health support and more adults in the schools, we wouldn’t be missing these things.”

And Morgan County School Board President Nancy Hooper said she and others are committed to getting out the word about why this is needed for every school in the state.

“We desperately need money and resources to take care of our students,” she said. “They deserve it.”

Almost three-quarters of Colorado’s college students stick with it

2026-07-16T14:49:52+00:00

Good afternoon. Welcome back to Beyond High School.

National data from the 2025 school year showed the rate of students who are sticking with college ticked up.

The National Student Clearinghouse numbers reveal that of the nearly 2.62 million students who entered college in fall 2024 nationwide, 77.1% were still enrolled in fall 2025. That’s a slight increase from 76.8% the year before.

Most students — 69.1% — stayed at the school they entered in the fall. Another 8% of those students stuck with college but transferred to another school.

You can read the rest of this article here.

This college rodeo team is mostly women. Here’s why that matters for rural men.

2026-07-09T22:52:53+00:00

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On the way back from the College National Finals Rodeo, graduate student Justise Jones and her assistant coach discussed a pertinent question: Where have all the cowboys gone?

Of about 30 athletes on the Colorado Mesa University rodeo team, only four are men, even though they have traditionally dominated the sport. The team’s ratio is an extreme example of an underexamined trend: fewer rural men are attending four-year colleges.

Even when men join the team, Jones said, “it’s really tough to get boys to stick around.”

While experts say rural men often don’t need a college degree to make a living in their communities, they also worry the men will miss out on opportunities for increased economic mobility, greater civic engagement, and access to healthcare. Researchers also worry that fewer rural men in college might weaken the health of rural communities by reducing the skilled workforce and decreasing the tax base.

National college data shows rural residents are less likely than urban and suburban residents to earn a bachelor’s degree, and men attend college at lower rates than women.

At Colorado Mesa in Grand Junction, about 54% of students are women. The school tracks the counties and regions students come from but doesn’t specifically classify students as rural. However, many students come from rural areas of Colorado. Nationally, there is a significant lack of data on rural students.

Some Colorado Mesa academic programs are drawing more interest from rural men. They include CMU Tech, the college’s two-year, open-admission school that offers vocational programs such as welding and electric line work.

Research has shown a sense of belonging on campus also helps attract students to college. The rodeo team helps embody that idea. The team was established at CMU as a club in the 1970s before becoming a varsity sport in 2018.

The annual school rodeo has become one of the university’s largest events. The event also features a barbecue competition called the Maverick Meat Up where President John Marshall smokes free food for students and community members.

“Rodeo week is probably the most stressful week,” said Wylee Mitchell, a female rodeo athlete who recently graduated from Colorado Mesa. “But it is the best experience that I had while in college.”

But rodeo coach Branden Edwards said some of the roadblocks to attracting rural men have been financial, and he wants more scholarships to help offset the costs of attending college. He also said he often has to negotiate with rural men about what college can offer them, while recruiting women tends to be easier.

“A lot more of the women that we’re recruiting are wanting to go into business, education, accounting, or nursing,” he said. “So Mesa is the dream come true for them.”

University of Kentucky professor Ty McNamee, who studies rural colleges and students, said the rodeo team’s experience mirrors what he’s seen across the country. McNamee and several colleagues are studying why gender in rural areas factors into the likelihood of going to college.

His research shows that men often feel more pressure to provide for their families, place less value on a college degree, and are less likely to enroll if they come from lower-income households.

The women on Colorado Mesa’s rodeo team back up what Edwards and McNamee have seen in how expectations and culture can shape whether a student goes to college.

For Jones, who is from Canada, college was an expectation. That’s not always the case in families where men are expected to work or help on a farm or ranch.

“That’s just kind of like the way it goes,” Jones said.

For McKenzie Betts, a 20-year-old senior from rural Alaska, going to college wasn’t necessarily about whether she could make a living in a rural area. She saw college as a gateway to create options for herself, no matter where she lives.

“The value of higher education is that it sets you apart when it comes to looking for your job in your career field, and it gives you a head start,” she said.

Edwards, who is from rural Colorado and graduated from CMU, said many rural men can make a living by working hard and having an entrepreneurial mindset.

But he also tries to communicate to prospective student athletes that he’s been afforded many opportunities because of his college education, even if he’s no longer working in the field he studied.

“College is just a great doorway into giving you options and how you want to make a living,” he said. “How you want to affect people and how you want to meet change.”

Colorado receives funding to bring back the FAFSA completion tracker

2026-07-01T20:18:03+00:00

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Six months after state budget cuts left Colorado high school counselors without access to a financial aid application tracking tool, the state is poised to get it back.

Colorado has received a two-year, $177,350 grant from the Statewide Internet Portal Authority to reactivate the Colorado Financial Aid Portal. The tool helps counselors track individual student progress on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. The form opens up free college aid and scholarships to students.

“We saw a need to really address this important step in the process of Colorado students accessing higher education,” said Noah Kaplan, director of the Colorado SIPA GovGrants program.

Lawmakers cut funding for the administrator who oversaw the portal as part of efforts to close a $1.2 billion shortfall in the 2025-26 budget year. The Colorado Department of Higher Education said counselors would lose access to the tool in December due to the cut.

College advisors said losing the portal would quadruple their workload because they would have to return to asking students one by one about their FAFSA progress instead of using data to identify those who needed help.

In the SIPA grant application, groups such as the Denver Scholarship Foundation said losing the tool left educators “scrambling to gather information through time-consuming investigating.”

National College Attainment Network experts, who track and advocate for FAFSA progress and policies, said the statewide tool’s demise was unheard of during a time when states, including Colorado, want to increase financial aid application completion.

The NCAN FAFSA tracker shows a record 58.6% of students completed the form this year. Experts attribute the increase in part to a simplified federal application.

Colorado’s FAFSA completion rate also increased, but the state once again ranked near the bottom of the nation, with only 46.3% of high school seniors filling out the form.

What it means when a Colorado college is designated a Basic Needs Campus or a Thriving Institution

2026-06-30T21:21:01+00:00

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Earlier this month, the Colorado Department of Higher Education announced a newly revamped Basic Needs Campus designation recognizing 17 colleges and universities for supporting students facing challenges such as food insecurity and mental health needs.

The designation is one of four state recognition programs aimed at encouraging public and private colleges and universities to better support students. While the designations don’t come with additional funding, they establish statewide standards for how colleges and universities provide services that help students stay enrolled, graduate, and prepare for careers.

CDHE Chief Educational Equity Officer Gillian McKnight-Tutein said the designations have helped hold schools accountable even without funding. She added they have fostered collaboration among campuses and created a sense of pride as schools share strategies to help students succeed.

“Schools want to send a signal to their students, ‘We got you, we have your back, and we will take care of you when you’re here,’” said McKnight-Tutein, who oversees the state’s designation programs.

The revamped Basic Needs Campus designation combines the former Healthy Minds Campus and Hunger Free Campus recognitions. Here’s a rundown of all of the higher education designations and what they mean.

What are the designations?

Colorado’s higher education designations fall into three broad categories: student success, career preparation, and student well-being. The state has plans to create other designations, McKnight-Tutein said.

The first category, which includes designations created by the state legislature, focuses on student success.

In 2024, Colorado lawmakers created the First-Generation Serving Institution designation to measure how well colleges and universities support students who are the first in their families to attend college. To earn the designation, schools must enroll first-generation students at rates above the statewide average. Twenty-one schools have earned the designation.

Lawmakers also created the Thriving Institutions designation this year. The state expects to begin recognizing campuses this fall and honor colleges and universities based on measures including student retention and graduation rates.

The second type of designation focuses on how well colleges and universities prepare students for jobs.

The Career Connected Campus designation recognizes schools that provide students with work-based learning experiences and prepare them for in-demand, high-wage careers. Twelve schools have earned the designation.

The state also recognizes colleges and universities that participate in a network of schools seeking to expand work-based learning opportunities.

The third category centers on students’ social well-being. That includes the revamped Basic Needs Campus designation, which awards schools “cornerstone” or “comprehensive” status based on the mental health and food support services available to students.

McKnight-Tutein said the designations help signal to students that certain supports should be available no matter where they attend college in Colorado. The department also encourages campuses to test new approaches and share successful practices with one another.

How Western Colorado met the designation’s expectations

Western Colorado University has earned three designations: Basic Needs Campus, First-Generation Serving Institute, and Career Connected Campus.

Holly Hunter, the school’s assistant director of community wellness, said earning those designations requires offering services students might need, such as food pantries, advisors to connect students to government assistance, and on-campus mental health counseling.

Meeting the designation standards also means making sure every staff member knows what resources are available and can connect students with them. Students don’t just get food, Hunter said. They interact with staff who are trained to ask questions and build relationships.

Hunter recalled conversations with a student that revealed a family member had been diagnosed with cancer.

Hunter and other staff quickly connected the student with community groups that helped arrange transportation home. They also worked to make sure the student’s academic needs were addressed, asking questions such as, “How are we making sure that your academics are managed? Who’s the person talking with all of your professors?”

“And I think that’s one of those things where everybody is involved in that student’s success,” Hunter said.

Which campuses have designations

First-Generation Serving campuses

Aims Community College
Arapahoe Community College
Colorado Northwestern Community College
Community College of Aurora
Community College of Denver
Front Range Community College
Lamar Community College
Morgan Community College
Northeastern Junior College
Otero College
Pikes Peak State College
Pueblo Community College
Red Rocks Community College
Trinidad State College
Adams State University
Colorado Mesa University
Colorado State University Pueblo
Fort Lewis College
Metropolitan State University of Denver
University of Colorado Denver
University of Northern Colorado

Six other public and private colleges get recognition for participating in the FirstGen Forward Network. They are:

Colorado State University
Regis University
University of Colorado Boulder
University of Colorado Colorado Springs
University of Denver
Western Colorado University

Career Connected campuses

Colorado College
Colorado School of Mines
Colorado State University Fort Collins
Colorado State University Global
Metropolitan State University of Denver
Regis University
University of Colorado Denver
University of Denver
University of Northern Colorado
Western Colorado University
Community College of Aurora
Pueblo Community College

Basic Needs campuses

Colorado School of Mines
Colorado State University Fort Collins
Colorado State University Pueblo
Fort Lewis College
Metropolitan State University of Denver
University of Colorado Boulder
University of Colorado Colorado Springs
University of Colorado Denver
University of Northern Colorado
Western Colorado University
Aims Community College
Arapahoe Community College
Colorado Mountain College
Community College of Aurora
Front Range Community College
Pikes Peak State College
Red Rocks Community College

Find out how much Colorado college tuition and fees have increased over the years

2026-06-25T19:58:22+00:00

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The cost of tuition and fees at a Colorado public university has increased nearly 125% since the Great Recession, a rate far outpacing inflation since 2009. At the state’s two-year colleges, these prices have almost doubled.

The increases stem from declining federal and state investment in higher education, said University of Denver researcher Cecilia Orphan. And costs will likely continue to rise. Instead of boosting funding for public colleges and universities, Colorado lawmakers have allowed schools to raise tuition, primarily due to budgetary constraints. This fall, four-year universities can increase tuition by 3.5%, and two-year colleges can raise it by 5%.

But Colorado experts say students shouldn’t avoid college because of the rising cost. Families rarely pay the full sticker price, they said, because scholarships and federal and state financial aid help offset tuition costs.

Going to college provides long-term benefits, Orphan said, including better health outcomes, greater civic engagement, and the potential to earn higher wages.

“That’s why it’s important for families to look at their options, because it’s up to the college to make a strong offer in order to really be considered by the student and family,” said Angelica Lopez-Rodriguez, a Denver Scholarship Foundation college advisor who helps students at Bruce Randolph School.

Some low-income students also qualify for federal Pell Grants to pay for college. These federal grants provide free money to students based on financial need. Although the grants have remained fairly stagnant over the years, a Pell can still provide up to $7,395 annually toward tuition, said Denver Scholarship Foundation Chief Impact Officer Nate Cadena.

Colorado also has the Colorado Opportunity Fund, or COF, which has helped lower tuition costs for more than three decades. Last year, COF provided $116 per credit hour to undergraduate students enrolled at a state institution who completed a COF application. Students without legal documentation can qualify by applying for the state’s ASSET program.

For a full-time student at a four-year public university, the state fund saves students about $3,500 per year.

The state also offers a tax credit program that reimburses up to two years of tuition for students from households earning $90,000 or less per year. Colorado also invests in local community programs that help students and families pay for and navigate college.

Families and students interested in understanding how much they might pay at some Colorado colleges can use a school’s price calculator, such as the University of Colorado’s Cost of Education Estimator and Colorado State University’s Net Price Calculator. And experts say parents and families should speak with their school advisers.

Voter guide: Where the 2026 Colorado Republican Party gubernatorial candidates stand on education

2026-06-12T21:44:46+00:00

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Where do Colorado’s gubernatorial candidates stand on education issues?

Chalkbeat Colorado analyzed the education records of the candidates ahead of the primaries on June 30. The field includes two Democrats and three Republicans.

Read about each of the three Republican Party candidates below:

State Rep. Scott Bottoms

What is Bottoms’ record on education?

Bottoms, 55, has served as a Colorado state representative since 2023. The Colorado Springs resident is pastor of the Colorado Springs Church at Briargate and a U.S. Navy veteran.

Bottoms called the state’s education system “broken” in an interview with KUNC.

During his three years as a state representative, Bottoms has sponsored three bills related to transgender youth, including one that would have banned the participation of transgender students in gendered sports unless they were co-ed. All three bills failed.

Voter guide: Where the 2026 Colorado Democratic Party gubernatorial candidates stand on education

In a Colorado Sun questionnaire, Bottoms has said he supports Initiatives 108, 109 and 110.

Initiative 108 would require a person convicted of trafficking a child for sexual servitude to serve life in prison. Initiative 109 would require student athletes to participate on teams that match their sex assigned at birth. And Initiative 110 would prohibit surgeries for children under age 18 that alter their biological sex characteristics.

The Bottoms campaign did not respond to requests for an interview before deadline, or say whether he would enroll Colorado in the new federal education tax-credit program.

What is Bottoms’ platform for education?

Supporting parents’ right to direct their child’s education.
Offering tax incentives for stay-at-home parents and caregivers.
Pushing for curriculum transparency and allowing for school boards to reject “state-imposed ideologies.”
Protecting kids from politicized content, boosting online safety, and ensuring students can only compete in gendered sports based on their sex assigned at birth.
Reforming family courts, education, and healthcare, as well as addressing grandparents’ rights, after-school programs, and parental issues.

State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer

What is Kirkmeyer’s record on education?

Kirkmeyer, 67, is a Weld County resident who has a bachelor of science in education from the University of Colorado Boulder. She’s spent most of her career working as a dairy farmer and small business owner.

Kirkmeyer’s first year in the Colorado Senate was in 2021, and she has served on the Senate Education Committee. She also spent four years on the powerful Joint Budget Committee, which helps craft the state budget.

Kirkmeyer has been an active member of the state legislature, filing over 300 bills. Many have involved education.

Kirkemeyer sponsored bipartisan laws to create a task force to study the statewide K-12 education accountability system, establish a grant program to help schools affected by the mineral and gas industry create park-like environments at schools, and allow high school students to take four-year university courses off campus.

She’s often talked about the need to protect state education funding through difficult budget cuts, although she’s against tax increases.

This year, she was part of a group of lawmakers that filed the state’s School Finance Act ahead of the state budget. The school funding bill didn’t get considered until after the state budget, but district leaders said the early filing allowed them to provide more feedback on their needs before its passage.

Kirkmeyer has said she will vote yes on Initiatives 108, 109 and 110.

In a Colorado Public Radio interview, Kirkmeyer highlighted that she helped end the budget stabilization factor, which allowed lawmakers to divert money away from education for other priorities. Lawmakers ended the practice in 2024, though Kirkmeyer said the state still underfunds education.

Kirkmeyer’s campaign didn’t respond to requests for an interview before deadline, and didn’t answer a question about her position on the new federal education tax credits.

What is Kirkmeyer’s platform for education?

Requiring at least 65% of state funding to be spent in the classroom.
Ensuring programs are backed by evidence before funding can continue.
Supporting district efforts to ban cellphones in classrooms.
Ensuring every high school has a police officer on site.
Equipping schools with camera systems that have artificial intelligence weapons-detection systems to speed up threat detection and public safety officials’ reaction times.

Victor Marx

What is Marx’s record on education?

Marx, 60, is the founder and CEO of All Things Possible, a nonprofit humanitarian ministry. The Colorado Springs resident is also an author who has written two books about his life.

In interviews, Marx has focused on his leadership experience as a political outsider. He has little documented experience with education issues and hasn’t said much about them in interviews.

In an interview with Colorado Public Radio, Marx said he wants to make it easier for families to pay for childcare. And in campaign videos, Marx has said he wants to help young people stay in Colorado after they’ve gone to college.

Marx said in a Colorado Sun candidate questionnaire that he supports Initiatives 108, 109 and 110.

Marx’s campaign didn’t respond to requests for an interview, and didn’t say what his position is about the new federal tax credits for education.

What is Marx’s education platform?

The one major mention of an education policy on his campaign website calls to direct the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment to expand apprenticeship programs, as well as create workforce pipelines in construction, technology, energy, and other fields.

His website says Marx wants to provide incentives to employers that sponsor apprenticeships through tax benefits and recruitment support. He also wants to guarantee that apprentices have pathways to enter various fields.

Voter guide: Where the 2026 Colorado Democratic Party gubernatorial candidates stand on education

2026-06-12T21:42:10+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

Where do Colorado’s gubernatorial candidates stand on education issues?

Chalkbeat Colorado analyzed the education records of the candidates ahead of the primaries on June 30. The field includes two Democrats and three Republicans.

Read about each of the Democratic Party candidates below:

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet

What is Bennet’s record on education?

Bennet, 61, who resides in Denver, has served as a United States senator since 2009. Education has been a pillar of his political career, including during an unsuccessful 2019 presidential campaign.

Bennet’s education experience started in 2005, when he was hired as superintendent of the state’s largest school district, Denver Public Schools.

Under Bennet, Denver Public Schools shut down low-performing and underenrolled schools, expanded school choice, and allowed more charter schools to operate in the district. The changes he made helped improve student academic achievement, but some remain controversial to this day.

Voter guide: Where the 2026 Colorado Republican Party gubernatorial candidates stand on education

Bennet left Denver Public Schools when he was appointed to fill an open U.S. Senate seat in 2009. In Congress, he helped usher in the Every Student Succeeds Act, which succeeded the No Child Left Behind Act and is the primary federal law governing K-12 education.

He serves on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and notably voted against the appointment of Betsy DeVos to be U.S. education secretary in 2017.

Bennet has said Colorado needs to make childcare more affordable, including by creating a dedicated funding source and using underenrolled schools to house early childhood programs. He also said he believes Gov. Jared Polis’ focus on kindergarten and early childhood has been a success.

Bennet’s campaign said he doesn’t support private school vouchers or public funds going to private or religious schools.

But Bennet believes rejecting a federal program that would provide tax credits for donations to scholarship-granting organizations “could be short sighted and put millions of dollars that could help kids in Colorado at risk.” He believes Colorado should wait until rules for the programs are finalized before making a decision, his campaign said.

What is Bennet’s platform for education?

Raising wages for Colorado educators.
Increasing the number of educator training programs, including apprenticeships.
Improving statewide resources and training for teaching math and reading.
Tackling student mental health challenges, curbing violence in schools, and creating more opportunities for kids to get outdoors.
Making Colorado the first state where every student will earn a living wage after high school by increasing the number of career training and college classes offered in high school, and boosting access to apprenticeships and industry credentials.

Bennet said he wants to be an education governor

In an interview, Bennet said he would be an education governor who understands that school district officials need state funding and support.

He highlighted his record in Denver Public Schools, where he said he helped raise academic achievement, improved graduation rates, and curbed the dropout rate. A 2024 study by the University of Colorado Denver’s Center for Education Policy Analysis backs up some of his claims.

Bennet said he still believes that the state’s education system needs changes.

“I think in Colorado we have the opportunity for the whole country to pursue quality at scale, pursue rigor at scale, and give teachers and school districts the support they need to be able to deliver for our kids,” he said.

Attorney General Phil Weiser

What is Weiser’s record on education?

Weiser, 55, who lives in Denver, has served as the state’s attorney general since 2019. As attorney general, Weiser has focused on school safety and student mental health.

Weiser’s office leads the state’s Safe2Tell program, which allows students to anonymously report violent threats. He’s also helped oversee the program’s expansion.

Weiser issued grants to help curb student cellphone use in schools, even before state lawmakers required districts to create policies about it.

He also oversees the Office of School Safety and the Office of Gun Violence Prevention and sought to provide training to teachers and school administrators as gun laws have evolved.

Weiser recently backed a state law that requires school districts to publicly display how they help at-risk students and issued grants to combat youth vaping.

He’s also said that technical education should expand to more districts. He backed the creation of youth apprenticeship program CareerWise Colorado a decade ago.

Weiser has been active in suing the Trump administration, including several lawsuits related to education and childcare.

And Weiser has said he would not participate in the federal tax credit program if elected. He said he believes it would take money away from public education.

What is Weiser’s platform for education?

Preserving funding for effective prenatal and early childhood programs.
Creating strategies for childhood mental health.
Increasing funding for childcare access to make it more affordable.
Increasing funding for teacher pay.
Expanding apprenticeships, career and technical education, and low-cost job training options.

Weiser wants to support schools and student safety

In an interview, Weiser said the state is not spending enough money to help students.

He said kids are struggling with mental health issues, a lack of access to early childhood education, and scant career and technical educational offerings.

Weiser said he would fund new education programs through changes to the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. These shifts would require taxpayer approval.

As governor, he hopes to also increase the number of mentorship opportunities that benefit kids.

“When I’m governor, I’m going to make a full-throated commitment to invest in our kids’ future from cradle to early childhood education to career workforce skills,” he said.

After vying for top Chicago job, Sito Narcisse lands interim role in Denver Public Schools

2026-06-03T19:02:24+00:00

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Denver Public Schools has hired Sito Narcisse, a school administrator who recently was a finalist for the top job in Chicago Public Schools, to fill a high-ranking role on an interim basis.

Narcisse joined the district May 1 as interim chief of schools, a position that has not existed since cuts to administrative office positions a year ago, according to a district spokesperson.

Narcisse brings about 15 years of education administration experience, including as superintendent of the East Baton Rouge Parish School System, District of Columbia Public Schools’ chief of secondary schools, and Metro Nashville Public Schools chief of schools.

Narcisse’s tenure as East Baton Rouge superintendent split community opinions. Supporters praised his initiatives that linked high school students with college-level courses, while others raised concerns about his communication style and pointed to low employee morale. The school board voted narrowly in late 2023 to not renew his contract.

After leaving East Baton Rouge, Narcisse launched an education consulting company. He also hosts an education podcast called Unlearned and Unlimited, where he has interviewed education experts and former superintendents.

Narcisse was a finalist for the Chicago Public Schools CEO role, which after a prolonged search went in March to an internal candidate who had been serving as interim CEO.

In Denver, Narcisse’s interim job responsibilities include “providing vision, strategic direction, and driving educational excellence,” the spokesperson said. The chief of schools also leads initiatives that support school leaders in helping students. Information on Narcisse’s salary was not immediately available; Chalkbeat has filed a public information request for it.

Narcisse declined an interview request.

Superintendent Alex Marrero announced in April he would realign central office positions and reestablish the chief of schools position. The district did not provide a timetable for posting the permanent job, for which Narcisse could be a candidate, the spokesman said.

Student math proficiency rises but literacy results are mixed, preliminary Colorado test scores show

2026-05-29T22:50:19+00:00

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The share of Colorado students who met or exceeded state standards on state math tests rose from last year to this year in nearly every grade. But when it comes to literacy, it’s more of a mixed bag.

Those are two major takeaways from the preliminary results on the Colorado Measures of Academic Success, or CMAS, which were released Friday by the Colorado Department of Education. They roughly match nationwide data from last year showing that students’ math performance is ticking up, but that reading scores are stagnant. Explaining those and related trends is not an easy task.

The state also released PSAT and SAT results, with encouraging signs for younger high schoolers.

“These results show both progress and areas where we must continue to improve,” said Colorado Education Commissioner Susana Córdova in a news release about the data.

The preliminary data gives an overall picture of the percentage of students in each grade meeting or exceeding state standards on math, literacy, science, and social studies tests. But it doesn’t show results from specific groups of students, like English learners or students with disabilities. It also doesn’t include district or school level results.

The full data will be publicly released in August, according to an education department news release.

The data released Friday shows math proficiency in elementary and middle schools continues to steadily improve after dropping dramatically during the pandemic.

Nine of the 10 grades tested showed improvements. For example, 39% of fourth graders and 37.8% of eighth graders met or exceeded state standards on the CMAS math exam. That’s a slight improvement over last year.

Literacy proficiency increased for fourth and fifth graders, with students in fourth grade making the greatest strides. The data shows 49.9% of fourth graders were proficient in literacy, up five percentage points from 2025, although proficiency rates for third graders fell.

“Early literacy has been a major focus in Colorado, and we are encouraged by the progress we are seeing,” Cordova said.

Meanwhile, there was a decline in literacy proficiency in every middle school grade by two percentage points. For example, CMAS literacy proficiency dropped 1.7 percentage points to 42.2% of eighth graders.

As for high schoolers, PSAT scores for ninth and tenth graders improved from 2025 in both math and literacy.

In literacy, 65.6% of ninth graders scored proficient or above in literacy while 65.1% of 10th graders did so. Meanwhile, PSAT ninth grade math proficiency increased to 40.6%, and proficiency in math for 10th graders increased to 37.9%.

The news was less rosy for 11th graders. The rate of students meeting or exceeding standards on the SAT math and literacy tests dropped slightly compared to last year. The education department cautioned that low participation in the test continues to skew how to interpret those results. The news release didn’t include the percentage of eligible students taking the test this year.

Science proficiency on the CMAS dropped this year in grades five, eight, and 11. And in social studies, which is tested every three years among a representative sample of students, a quarter of fourth graders and third of seventh graders scored proficient.

In recent years, Colorado lawmakers have sought to make the CMAS shorter, and get testing information out to parents and teachers faster.

For the CMAS, students take what’s known as adaptive tests, which means that based on how students do on the first section of CMAS exams, they get either an easier or harder second section.

Next year, fourth graders will also no longer have to take the CMAS social studies test. Lawmakers eliminated the test for that grade to save money after another budget shortfall.

10 years and 16,800 students short: What went wrong with Colorado’s youth apprenticeship program?

2026-05-27T21:57:25+00:00

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Treyvon Greenwood thought he would go into the trades after graduation. A senior at Aurora’s Smoky Hill High School, he was interested in becoming a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning technician.

His trajectory changed when his English teacher heard Greenwood talk about his passion for tutoring other students. The teacher told his school counselor, who suggested Greenwood try a teaching apprenticeship instead.

At first he was reluctant, but Greenwood has grown to love splitting his time between his classes at Smoky Hill High and apprenticing in a fifth grade classroom at nearby Sunrise Elementary School. The 18-year-old works much like a student teacher would and earns more than $18 an hour.

Fifth grade students at Sunrise Elementary School work with Treyvon Greenwood, a first-year Future Educator Pathway apprentice, on Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025.

“I help them with their writing, and I just feel like they trust me,” Greenwood said of the fifth graders. “I think they know that if ‘I’m struggling with something, I can come straight to Mr. Trey.’”

Greenwood’s experience is what state and business leaders had in mind when they launched the CareerWise Colorado youth apprenticeship program in 2016. But it’s also rare: Only 1,200 students statewide have taken part in CareerWise programs, according to its founder, who had envisioned 20,000 students participating in its first decade.

The organization also takes credit for about 2,000 more apprentices who have participated in programs originally started by or inspired by CareerWise. Even including those students, that means CareerWise fell short by about 16,800 apprentices.

There are myriad reasons why: Some businesses have found they’re not well-equipped to work with teenagers and left the program. School officials across the state say they’ve struggled to convince families of the value of apprenticeships, which require students to commit to two to three years of balancing school and work. Apprenticeships also compete for students with an increasing variety of other educational options, from college preparation to internships to less time-intensive career education programs.

Noel Ginsburg, a Colorado businessperson who founded CareerWise, described his original goals for program participation as “well-intentioned and ill-informed.”

Ten years in, CareerWise offers an important case study in the challenges of offering robust on-the-job training for high school students, an idea that has widespread bipartisan support and increasing investment from the public and private sectors but can be difficult to execute on a large scale.

First-year Future Educator Pathway apprentice Amyah Santiago hangs up words inspired by "The Gift of Words" by Peter Reynolds at Sunrise Elementary School. The book was part of a read-aloud project and activity for the school in December.

Youth apprenticeships viewed as an idea that could create its “own natural momentum”

Backed by $9.5 million from JP Morgan Chase and Bloomberg Philanthropies, Ginsburg envisioned students being trained in such fields as healthcare, banking, finance, and the trades. (Bloomberg Philanthropies is a supporter of Chalkbeat.)

Juniors and seniors would earn their high school diploma and job training, plus valuable industry certifications or time spent working toward a two-year college degree. A post-graduation year would be spent getting more work experience and could include college enrollment. CareerWise would help build a trained workforce in Colorado while offering some students a cheaper alternative to a two- or four-year degree. Others, like Greenwood, might spark an interest in a different-than-expected career path that still requires a college degree.

The idea for CareerWise came from Switzerland. There, youth apprenticeships are embedded in the culture. About two out of every three young people participate, and businesses line up to recruit those students into nearly 250 different occupations.

Ginsburg visited Switzerland in 2015 to see this model in action. At the time, he headed Intertech Plastics, a Denver-based plastics manufacturer he founded, and he was struggling to hire skilled mid-level workers.

Ginsburg was so impressed with what he saw that he led a delegation of 50 Colorado business and civic leaders, including then-Gov. John Hickenlooper, to Switzerland the following year. The globe-trot laid the groundwork for the creation of CareerWise.

Youth apprenticeships weren’t new in the United States; Wisconsin’s pioneering program was established in 1991. But by the end of the trip, Hickenlooper said he was convinced that Colorado could take the lead, mainly because of Ginsburg’s dedication and vision.

“If we do this properly, in three years there should be as deep a foundation and rooting of this that it will have its own natural momentum,” Hickenlooper said in a video documenting the trip.

Ginsburg didn’t want CareerWise Colorado, the nonprofit he eventually created, to run the programs. Instead he wanted to connect schools and employers with the know-how to prop up two- to three-year apprenticeship programs and ensure they received crucial but difficult-to-earn federal recognition for program quality.

Students in four school districts — Denver Public Schools, Cherry Creek School District, Jeffco Public Schools, and Mesa County Valley School District 51 — began apprenticing in 2017.

Today, only three of the four districts are still involved with CareerWise, and their success rate varies. District 51 continues to offer youth apprenticeship programs through a partnership with its local chamber but without CareerWise’s support in the last two years. About 65 apprentices have completed Jeffco’s program. Denver has had 272 students complete apprenticeships but is reworking its agreement with CareerWise.

Cherry Creek offers some of the most robust CareerWise options, including in information technology, advanced manufacturing, hospitality, and teaching.

Graham Thatcher worked in Cherry Creek School District's SalesForce apprentice program. After learning on the job for almost three years, she was hired full time in 2025. Thatcher works on her computer on Dec. 16, 2025 at Cherry Creek School District's Instructional Support Facility in Aurora, Colorado.

But getting students interested in apprenticeships is hard, even for a district as successful as Cherry Creek, school counselors said.

“I do think that parents sometimes have reservations, just because they’ve grown up in this: They should go to college,” said Cady Hobbs, a counseling coordinator at Grandview High School.

Some apprenticeships can lead to college, as it has for Greenwood, who plans to attend Metropolitan State University of Denver and participate in a program for Black educators. But that type of path might not be as easily understood by parents.

Meanwhile, districts like Denver and Cherry Creek offer so many career-related opportunities, from career exploration classes to summer internships, that it creates competition with their own apprenticeship programs.

“This landscape is a lot broader than I think anyone may have realized in 2016 or 2017,” said Theress Pidick, the Denver district’s youth career development director.

CareerWise’s revolving door of businesses

Another big hurdle to growing apprenticeships has been the revolving door of businesses that are willing and able to host and train a high schooler.

Ginsburg said in an April roundtable event that getting and keeping businesses engaged has been one of the hardest challenges for CareerWise.

“What we don’t have are the companies that see this as not just an imperative to do the right thing for their community but how important this is to their bottom line,” he said.

CareerWise launched with about 45 employers. By the second year, about 25 returned. The number of employers has ebbed and flowed over the years, with 29 actively working with apprentices. The reasons why they’ve stopped participating vary.

Some, like Mikron Denver, now run their own programs, separate from CareerWise.

Eagle County Paramedic Services tried CareerWise for a year before realizing students needed to have certain certifications that could be only earned when they turned 18. Insurance also wouldn’t cover student ambulance drivers.

“I think we really did go into it with the best intentions, but there’s no way to know everything it’s going to take,” said Katie Coakley, the organization’s marketing and communications specialist.

John Halloran, a regional manager with construction business RA Nelson, said his Eagle County company loved having an apprentice. The student worked full time over the summer, but once the school year got underway it became difficult to balance schoolwork with the constantly evolving schedules of construction.

“The hours and the pace didn’t really align,” Halloran said. “But I’d love to try it again and see if we can make it work.”

Vinz Koller, vice president of the Center for Apprenticeship and Work-Based Learning at Jobs for the Future, a nonprofit focused on expanding economic opportunities, agrees not enough businesses see the importance, unlike in Switzerland.

“The chicken and egg challenge we have is until you have enough opportunities, it’s going to be very hard for the youth and for parents to feel like this is an option,” Koller said.

Amyah Santiago, a first-year apprentice in the Future Educator Pathway, facilitates a lesson on inspiring words based on the book "The Gift of Words" by Peter Reynolds on Thursday, Dec. 18. 2026, at Sunrise Elementary School.

Some places have made it work. In Eagle County, which has participated since 2017, the dedication of a single employee — a former teacher who coordinates business participation through the local chamber of commerce — has made a difference. CareerWise Eagle County and the school district have shortened its program from three years to two so students aren’t choosing between college and an apprenticeship.

Warren Barker, a manager of supply chain logistics at Vail Health Hospital, said he believes his company’s participation in CareerWise represents an investment in Eagle County. Vail Health has employed 27 apprentices to date, though not every student ends up staying.

“The best thing I get to do in my job, by far, is seeing the caliber of students who go through the program,” he said. “And then being able to help get them focused into whatever is next for them, be it with Vail Health, hopefully, or anything else that they want to do.”

CareerWise has changed its apprenticeship programs

In response to the challenges it’s experienced — and in a bid to meet the current demand for more workforce training programs — CareerWise has pivoted.

Instead of focusing just on 16- to 18-year-olds, CareerWise has started pre-apprenticeships that help younger students prepare for an apprenticeship. And it’s also helping grow post-high school apprenticeships for young adults up to age 24, similar to the Switzerland program, Ginsburg said.

Andrew Sutliff hopes to someday get hired on permanently at CoorsTek, but feels his apprenticeship has taught him valuable skills that will transfer elsewhere. Sutliff works on a CNC machine on Dec. 4, 2025 at the factory in Golden, Colorado.

One example is its partnership with CoorsTek, a manufacturing company in Golden that makes ceramic parts used in computers, tanks and armor, and wind turbines, among others. With the help of CareerWise and a $4.58 million state grant, the company is using its CoorsTek Academy, an in-house training program launched in 2021 as a regional training hub, to teach apprentices ages 18-24. The first cohort of five started last year to learn skills to become mid-level Computer Numerical Control, or CNC, operators.

They will graduate able to troubleshoot complex issues, fix the machine when necessary, and program it, which will help them earn higher pay.

Andrew Sutliff, a 19-year-old CoorsTek apprentice who graduated from Cherry Creek’s school district last year, said he’s learning a lot in a short time.

“It feels like they’re cramming a lot that some people who have been here for four years don’t even begin to learn,” he said.

Even if he doesn’t get hired by CoorsTek full time, Sutliff said it’s a good opportunity to make himself more valuable to other companies.

CareerWise has also shifted from trying to grow a big program in Colorado to sprouting a host of smaller programs in other states. Ginsburg has helped prop up apprenticeship programs in New York and Elkhart County, Indiana. And more locations are likely.

With a $12.5 million federal grant, CareerWise launched the Future Ready Apprenticeship Center in 2025. The center provides $200,000 grants to connect other states with the lessons learned here and elsewhere, including program design, policy expertise, and funding.

First-year Future Educator Pathway apprentice Treyvon Greenwood hugs a student on their way back to class on Thursday, Dec. 18. 2025, at Sunrise Elementary School.

In addition to government grants, CareerWise itself is receiving more philanthropic support than ever, including $7 million from MacKenzie Scott’s YieldGiving foundation in 2023.

Even if he didn’t meet his original participation goals, Ginsburg still believes in the potential of widespread apprenticeship offerings for youth in Colorado. He believes the next decade won’t be just about tough lessons but opportunities to grow youth apprenticeships.

However, his expectations about how fast the program can grow have changed.

“We have a long way to go,” he said.

Colorado colleges have made progress re-enrolling students who left without finishing

2026-05-21T15:00:00+00:00

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Fewer Colorado students dropped out of college during the 2023-24 school year and more re-enrolled than in the year before, according to recent statistics. But that bit of good news wasn’t enough to put a dent in the overall number of working-age Coloradans who have some college education but no credential.

More than 623,000 people were in that category in the 2023-24 school year. That’s an increase of 9,300 Coloradans from the prior year, because more students left college without finishing than the number who returned.

The data compiled by the Associated Press from the National Student Clearinghouse provides an important view of these former students, often referred to in the higher education community as “stopouts,” during a time when Colorado universities want to entice more of them to return.

Some Colorado colleges and universities have increased efforts to help attract returning students who typically make less money than their peers who have completed a college education, while also often paying off student loans.

Michael Galchinsky, Colorado State University’s vice provost and dean for undergraduate affairs, said it’s difficult to reconnect with students once they leave college. Students don’t finish college because of numerous reasons, including running out of financial aid.

“Once they leave, they go out and they get immersed in jobs and families and other things that might make it hard for them to return,” he said.

Nationwide, the number of students who never completed college grew to 38 million in the 2023-24 year. However, the national data analysis by The Associated Press also shows an uptick in the number of residents returning.

In Colorado, university leaders partly credit Finish What You Started, a grant program that was propped up with pandemic relief funds and ended this school year, in helping former students return to college.

The $49 million program provided students with financial assistance, scholarships, grants, and other aid to get them back to college. Students also received academic and career advising. From 2022 to 2025, the program helped enroll about 5,000 former students, with about half earning their degree.

Finish What You Started has been more successful in getting students back to college than another ongoing program created at the same time called Colorado Re-Engaged. That program allows universities to grant an associate degree to former students who earned at least 70 college credits before dropping out. Those associate degrees also likely helped slow the growth in the number of Coloradans with some college but no credential.

Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Vaughn Toland, the executive director of admissions and outreach, said financial assistance was effective in getting former students to reenroll. The school has prioritized some scholarship money for returning students now that Finish What You Started has ended.

“Even $1,000 a semester can make a huge difference in terms of a student being able to come back to school or not,” Toland said.

Toland’s office also has been sending out emails to former students who haven’t enrolled for at least a year to encourage them to reapply.

And the school has other longstanding programs it uses to help Coloradans return, including waiving applications if they previously enrolled and helping returning students piece together credits into an individualized degree.

At CSU Fort Collins, Galchinsky said the end of the Finish What You Started program is “a loss of resources, but not a loss in mission.” The university has a new scholarship program called the Green and Gold Completion Award to help students who got close to graduating but dropped out, he said.

“We’re looking to make a home for every kind of Colorado resident here at Colorado State, no matter what your background is,” he said. “We’re going to meet them where they are and try to help elevate their lives.”

MSU Denver leaders hope former Gov. Roy Romer donation connects more of its students to policy and research

2026-05-19T22:34:19+00:00

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Former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer has donated his gubernatorial archives to Metropolitan State University and $2 million to a research institute he has supported that will now be affiliated with the university.

MSU Denver officials expect the move by the 97-year-old former lawmaker will open up research opportunities, as well as public policy and leadership lessons for students from lower-income backgrounds who are less likely to have grown up civically and politically engaged. The commuter campus of about 18,000 students also educates many students of color and is one of the most diverse universities in the state.

Romer has a personal tie to the university. Romer was a state lawmaker from 1958 to 1966 and sponsored legislation in the 1960s to establish MSU Denver. Romer, a Democrat, later served as Colorado governor from 1987 to 1999.

Romer said the papers he’s donating include some of his notable accomplishments such as championing Denver International Airport and vetoeing a ban on same-sex marriage. Romer also intends to donate additional papers from his tenure as superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District from 2000 to 2006, according to a spokesperson.

“I hope in the case studies, they [students] can look at the history that unfolded in that period of time and figure out what made it happen,” Romer said in an interview. “What were the ingredients of leadership?”

The newly renamed Romer Institute of Evidence-based Policy, formerly the Institute of Evidence-based Policy, will operate independently of the school and help bring speakers and ballot measure forums to the campus. The nonprofit says it has a commitment to evidence-based research that helps inform public policy decisions.

MSU Denver’s Matthew Makley, a provost and executive vice president of academic affairs, said the archives will help create internship opportunities for students to digitize the papers and help them write senior papers. And he’s especially excited that the donation will allow students to do more research. The school isn’t a designated research university, even though it does offer some opportunities to master’s and bachelor’s degree-seeking students.

The archives and the partnership with the institute will help students see themselves as the future policymakers, policy advisers, and leaders of Denver and the state, he said.

“This will be an opportunity for us to help students think about carving space in a domain they may not have ever imagined themselves moving in,” Makley said. “And that’s really the beauty of the institution that Governor Romer dreamed of.”

Colorado 2026 legislative roundup: The preschool, K-12, and higher education bills that passed and failed

2026-05-14T20:10:30+00:00

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Colorado lawmakers avoided cuts to the core of public education funding this legislative session despite facing a significant budget shortfall. But with more financial challenges likely in the years ahead, it’s now on voters to decide whether public schools deserve more dollars than the status quo.

A November ballot measure referred by lawmakers in Senate Bill 135 will ask voters if the state can keep part of their tax refund to fund K-12 schools. The state could also spend the extra money on key services such as healthcare and higher education.

Colorado lawmakers avoid big cuts to public education

Lawmakers referred the ballot measure to voters after a second year of needing to cut more than $1.2 billion from the state budget. That made it difficult to approve bills that required state spending. Despite the fiscal constraints, lawmakers did approve numerous education-related bills during the 120 day session. Many bills still require the governor’s signature.

Among them is a new law to allow colleges and K-12 schools to request someone’s guns be temporarily confiscated, a new bilingualism endorsement for high school graduates, and a bill to create a new Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development.

Legislators also approved a bill to allow the Colorado Department of Education to begin hearing 504 plan violations after parents complained that the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights’ process has lagged under the second Trump administration.

Lawmakers also passed another bill regarding the state’s ability to hear civil rights issues in schools, although the bill was significantly scaled back.

House Bill 1141 will expand educational discrimination definitions, such as making pregnancy or being a parent protected statuses. The bill also encourages but doesn’t require the state’s Civil Rights Division to hear school discrimination complaints.

Here’s a roundup of other education bills that passed and failed this legislative session, which ended Wednesday.

The education legislation approved

How do the state’s most effecitve schools help students succeed? That’s the question Senate Bill 170 will require a task force to explore and report back on by next year. The bill was sponsored by Senate President James Coleman after pushback on an “education deserts” bill that would have allowed the state to authorize charter schools in communities with low-performing schools and without local school board agreement.

House and Senate lawmakers approved two somewhat similar bills that would require social media companies to acknowledge a law enforcement warrant and give them a time period to comply. Lawmakers introduced the bills after two students were wounded in a shooting at Evergreen High School in Jefferson County. The shooter, a 16-year-old student who took his own life, had made suspicious social media posts before the shooting.

Senate Bill 11 requires social media companies to acknowledge a warrant within eight hours but gives them 72 hours to comply. The more strict Senate Bill 1255, which Gov. Jared Polis has threatened to veto, also requires social media companies to acknowledge a search warrant within eight hours, but gives an operator only 24 hours to comply under certain conditions.

As part of the budget process, lawmakers filed the state’s School Finance Act in January, which was much earlier than in past years. Senate Bill 23 sets district and state funding levels at $10.2 billion in the 2026-27 school year. Two amendments added to the bill late in the legislative session will dramatically curtail the power of Boards of Cooperative Educational Services, also called BOCES, to authorize bricks and mortar schools or homeschool enrichment programs outside their member school districts.

The powerful Joint Budget Committee also filed House Bill 1428 to require the Colorado Department of Education to provide a variety of information on publicly funded online learning and enrichment programming by Nov. 1.

Due to budgetary constraints, lawmakers decided to phase out a program that extends high school so students can earn college credits toward a teaching degree. House Bill 1357 would allow one more group of high school students to enroll before it ends.

And Colorado lawmakers cut back on how often school districts must administer the state’s Colorado Measures of Academic Success social studies test. Starting next year, only 7th graders will take it, per House Bill 1353.

House Bill 80 creates a Cradle to Career grant program within the Colorado Department of Human Services that would provide educational, extracurricular and social services support to children in poverty. The bill does not provide state funding for the grants. Instead, their availability will depend on charitable contributions from private groups, the federal government, or local governments.

Teachers won’t have to disclose misdemeanor convictions that occurred in the last seven years if they don’t involve a student or at-risk adult under House Bill 1090.

Lawmakers also approved Senate Bill 103 requiring districts to share information on how they help at-risk students in their schools.

Districts will also have an updated process to involve charter schools in local construction ballot measures after the passage of Senate Bill 145.

House Bill 1004 extends an existing tax credit for contributions to child care facilities for 10 more years. The law provides a tax credit of 50% of the value of the donation, up to $100,000.

Municipalities could designate a roadway next to a school as a “school street” that’s closed to traffic or where the speed limit is 10 miles per hour under House Bill 1318, which was inspired by a Littleton middle schooler who was fatally hit by a car while biking to school.

Employees of Colorado’s facility schools, which serve some of the state’s most vulnerable students with the highest needs, will be able to get pension benefits through the state’s Public Employees Retirement Association under House Bill 1146.

Teachers will no longer have to create individualized readiness plans for kindergarten students who score proficiently on readiness tests under House Bill 1050. Instead, the plans will be optional. The bill also requires the state to publicly report kindergarten readiness test scores disaggregated by school district, school, gender, race, and more.

Colorado lawmakers revamped the state’s higher education funding formula in House Bill 1345. The bill received pushback from private colleges after lawmakers cut $14.1 million from private student aid. Private college leaders said the cut, meant to be in effect for just one year, could open the door to a permanent loss of that funding.

Colorado students taking college classes while in high school have only been able to take classes at four-year universities if they take the classes on the college campus. House Bill 1078 would allow high school students to take college-level courses offsite.

Federal cuts have left universities that enroll high percentages of students of color without federal grant funding to support students. House Bill 1006 doesn’t include funding. But lawmakers hope that designating certain colleges as “thriving institutions” will show students of color that those campuses are a welcoming place.

Most Colorado universities will now need to stock abortion medication at on-site health clinics under House Bill 1335, which received final approval on the last day of session.

House Bill 1142 gives civil immunity to board members, staff members, and volunteers at child advocacy groups if these individuals acted reasonably and in good faith in disclosing information about a child or during investigations of child maltreatment.

Education bills that didn’t move forward

Senate Bill 68, designed to study how to reduce CMAS testing time, failed to advance.

After facing concerns from Polis, lawmakers decided to indefinitely postpone House Bill 1292, which would have required Colorado to place nondiscrimination rules on its use of a federal education tax credit program.

Senate Bill 180 would have created a new investment authority that could seek higher returns on certain pots of state money than what state investments typically produce. Tens of millions of dollars from the higher yield investments would have been earmarked to help low-income families pay for childcare. But the bill faced opposition from Colorado’s state treasurer and other groups who said it was risky and possibly violated the state constitution.

Lawmakers decided not to pursue the Building Excellent Teacher and Employee Residences Program in House Bill 139. The $40 million pot of money would have provided financial assistance to districts for workforce housing projects.

Lawmakers rejected a bill that would have raised money for public schools by subjecting microtransactions in online games to a 5% fee. House Bill 1148 was a wide-ranging bill aimed at enhancing data privacy for children on gaming platforms like Roblox and Minecraft. But lawmakers did pass a similar bill, House Bill 1418, that will put the proceeds of the 5% fee toward youth mental health services.

Colorado lawmakers rejected an attempt to change how school board members are elected. Instead of electing school board members at large, Senate Bill 57 would have restricted the pool of voters to those who live in the neighborhoods that the candidate would represent, similar to how Colorado elects its state representatives and congresspeople.

A bill aimed at saving Colorado families money on back-to-school supplies failed to advance. House Bill 1048 would have made children’s clothing and school supplies exempt from the state’s 2.9% sales tax for one weekend in July. A similar bill also failed to advance in 2024.

Lawmakers shelved Senate Bill 166, which would have disqualified candidates from running for school board if they had a recent conviction for certain violent crimes or felony drug offenses.

Colorado lawmakers rejected a bill to cut back on teacher evaluations. House Bill 1291 would have allowed teachers who are rated effective and who have Colorado’s version of tenure to be evaluated every three years instead of annually.

A Denver lawmaker hoped to replicate a city program that gives students a free pass to recreational, museum, and cultural facilities. But House Bill 1055 didn’t advance. The bill, backed by Colorado students, would have allowed for the pilot program to give My Colorado Cards to grades 6-12 students in a limited number of communities.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Metropolitan State University of Denver holds its first-ever graduation ceremony for parenting students

2026-05-12T22:14:36+00:00

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Laura Delmonico’s college journey has required constant juggling.

She has worked, interned, and volunteered as treasurer of her Metropolitan State University of Denver student association, and, most importantly to her, raised three children. This meant late nights, early mornings, and balancing college with her children’s schooling and their everyday lives.

Delmonico, 33, was a speaker at MSU Denver’s first-ever graduation on Saturday geared toward students who are also parents. About 30 students and their families attended the ceremony at the commuter college near the heart of downtown Denver.

Laura Delmonico's three children present her with a graduation cord during MSU Denver's parenting student graduation ceremony on Saturday, May 9, 2026 at the Auraria Campus in Denver.

Nationally, one in five college students are parents, but at MSU Denver it’s about 1 in 10. They often feel like outsiders on four-year university campuses.

Since 2024, MSU Denver has participated in a two-year program called FamilyU that’s meant to train campus officials and improve policies, resources, and support for students who are parents.

MSU Denver FamilyU co-chair Kristen Lyons, who is also a psychology professor, said the program has encouraged collaboration between students and school faculty and administrators to make parenting students’ lives easier on campus.

Lyons and others said the program has been especially important because the university estimates about 14% of its incoming fall class are parenting students.

Through the program, the university has asked students to suggest changes to create a more inclusive campus, drafted suggested language for professors if students need to bring kids to class, and helped students access financial support.

The group also has their own Parenting Student Association, which Delmonico participates in as treasurer. She also worked as an MSU Denver FamilyU intern, where she suggested an idea to someday place highchairs in the Tivoli Student Union.

Even the idea to have a cords at the ceremony came from parents.

Student Cherifa Traore, a FamilyU fellow and Parenting Student Association president, said she came up with the idea because she wondered why the school didn’t celebrate the accomplishments of parenting students when they walked during commencement.

“They go through all this, and at the end, they just graduate with everybody else,” Traore said.

The pink and teal cords she helped design were placed around their necks by their kids onstage. And students will wear the cords at commencement this week to distinguish themselves from other graduates.

Graduates receive from their children special graduation ropes in colors representing wisdom, creativity and ambition.

While Delmonico delivered her speech, some kids wandered between round tables and played with Slinkys and Lego blocks near the ceremony stage. But the noise hardly bothered Delmonico, who said during her graduation speech that the hard days and nights will help her children have a better future.

“You’re the reason we were able to keep going. You gave us the strength to push through,” she said. “Everything we did we did with you in our hearts.”

Delmonico graduated with a 4.0 GPA while balancing a schedule she said usually afforded her only a few hours of sleep a night. About half of the students at the graduation were recognized with honors and said they overcame difficult challenges balancing school and family.

Delmonico said she hopes the kids in the room draw inspiration from their parents. Some of the parents said that their younger kids mimicked them by playing “homework” at the dinner table. Older kids would encourage their parents to take care of themselves.

“I knew the way that I handled myself in this situation would influence how they approached different things in their lives,” Delmonico said of her children during her graduation speech. “As student parents, we aren’t just working towards a degree and a better life for our family. We’re also showing our children what it means to persevere.”

Regis University officials sound the alarm on Colorado budget that ‘punishes’ private college students

2026-05-11T23:17:07+00:00

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Colorado lawmakers are pausing $14.1 million in state funding that flows to private colleges and universities through grants, work study, and graduate student aid, affecting about 2,000 students.

The cut is one of many lawmakers made this year to pare back about $1.2 billion from the state’s budget, which faces increasing Medicaid costs and other pressures. While lawmakers aimed to preserve the core of public education funding, they cut some programs like the private college student state aid and an extended high school program for aspiring teachers.

Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican who sits on the powerful Joint Budget Committee, said the cut to private university and college student aid was one of many difficult decisions lawmakers needed to make to balance the budget. The JBC redirected the money to help fund public universities and colleges.

He added that students who choose a private university still have the ability to access the Colorado Opportunity Fund, which provides a stipend to eligible Colorado undergraduate students to attend public and private colleges.

“It’s not as if the state is leaving our students that have made the decision to go to a private school high and dry,” he said.

However, Colorado private university and college officials worry the one-time cut, which will take effect in the 2027-28 year, will cause students to rethink their decision to attend school this fall. They also fear additional actions by lawmakers last week will open up the possibility of permanent cuts in future years.

Nine Colorado private colleges and universities will be affected. Regis University, a Denver private Jesuit Catholic university, expects the largest cuts with 587 students losing about $5.5 million in state aid.

Kristine Bureau, the school’s vice president of admissions, financial aid, athletics, and university marketing, said in a statement that these are Colorado students whose families are taxpayers in the state. Lower-income students and those who are the first in their family to go to college will be the most affected, Regis officials said.

“Denying them access to aid that their own tax dollars support, aid that every other Colorado student retains, is a policy that punishes students for choosing private higher education,” she said. “Colorado’s workforce and communities will feel that loss.”

Lawmakers also amended a bill last week to revamp the state’s higher education funding formula to reflect the cut made in the 2027-28 budget, a move that Bureau said provides “a gateway for the state to make this permanent.”

Taggart said he understands Regis’ concerns that this could become a permanent cut and cannot guarantee that lawmakers next year will decide to keep the funding in the budget. Lawmakers expect more budget challenges next year.

“We deliberately, as a JBC, did it for one year to enable us to look at our budget for next year and see where we stand,” he said.

Numbers compiled by Regis officials show about 465 students at Colorado Christian University will lose about $3.5 million in grants, work study, and graduate student aid.

Another about 500 University of Denver students will lose about $3.2 million in aid. In a statement, University of Denver spokesperson Jason Gruenauer said the cut negatively affects students’ ability to attend the college of their choice.

And about 120 Colorado College students receiving over $400,000 in aid would be affected by the cut. The college’s leadership said in a statement that this decision hurts students who have the hardest time getting to college and state-based aid shouldn’t steer them toward one type of institution or another.

Regis University officials said they don’t plan any cuts to services, but they will evaluate how to fill the gap in student funding.

Private university endowments might be able to cover student aid for students in the short term, officials said. But that’s not a guarantee.

This story has been updated to include a statement from Colorado College leadership.

Gov. Polis says federal tax-credit program won’t violate Colorado anti-discrimination laws

2026-05-09T01:10:42+00:00

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Gov. Jared Polis said Friday that Colorado’s participation in a new federal tax-credit scholarship program won’t run afoul of state anti-discrimination laws because the program relies on private donations rather than public funding.

The federal program provides $1,700 in annual tax credits for donations made to scholarship-granting organizations for various educational services, such as private school tuition, tutoring, and after-school programs. Last week, several Democratic Colorado lawmakers decided to shelve a bill that would have required organizations to abide by state anti-discrimination laws.

The bill concerned Polis, whose office said the governor didn’t want to hamstring the state from bringing in money for education.

On Friday, Polis also said the state shouldn’t determine which organizations are “worthy” of receiving money from the program.

“When you give $100 to any charity, it can be a church, it can be something that discriminates. It can be pro-gay or anti-gay,” said Polis, who is the first openly gay man to be elected governor in the country. ”It doesn’t matter.”

Invest in Education Foundation, which supports the federal tax credit, hosted the event at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, drawing about 150 kids, educators, and parents. Attendees included representatives from Parents Challenge, a Denver-based nonprofit that supports school choice, and Seeds of Hope, a Catholic private school advocacy organization.

Invest in Education invited Polis to talk about his decision to opt Colorado into the federal program, which was approved last year as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act backed by Republicans. For states to benefit from the program, governors must opt in.

Speaking to reporters after the event, Polis tried to draw a line between his support for the federal tax credit and his stance that Colorado’s universal preschool programs cannot discriminate against students. The major difference between the two, he said, is the preschool programs use state dollars, not donations.

The state is currently involved in a U.S. Supreme Court case brought by two Catholic preschools that wanted to participate in the state’s universal preschool program but didn’t want to have to admit LGBTQ children or children from LGBTQ families.

More than two dozen states have opted into the federal tax-credit program, with most led by Republican governors, according to Ballotpedia. Polis, the first Democratic governor to opt in, said during the event that he doesn’t want Colorado to leave money on the table that could benefit all kids in the state.

If other states don’t opt into the program, he added, then Colorado should “go after their donors.”

Most Democratic governors have taken a wait-and-see approach to understand the program’s rules, which haven’t been finalized, before making a decision.

Democratic governors in New York and North Carolina have said they intend to opt into the program. Meanwhile, Kansas and Kentucky legislators have opted their states into the program, despite their Democratic governors trying to block participation.

“I’m personally excited that Colorado is one of the leading states in helping to build awareness around this exciting opportunity to boost charitable giving to help our kids,” Polis said.

Peter Murphy, who is the vice president of policy at Invest in Education, said the foundation hosted the event to raise awareness about what the law can do for private and public school families, as well as those who home-school.

“Every non-wealthy child in this country is the potential beneficiary,” Murphy said. “And what this law also does is it puts more control of a child’s education in the hands of their parents, including public school parents.”

While Polis has opted Colorado into the program, his term ends in January. The next governor could decide to opt the state out of the program when they take office.

Colorado lawmakers won’t pursue bill to place state limits on Trump-backed education tax credit program

2026-05-01T00:15:06+00:00

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Facing concerns from Gov. Jared Polis’ office, lawmakers indefinitely postponed a bill requiring Colorado to place nondiscrimination rules on its use of a federal education tax credit program.

The move during Thursday’s House Education Committee effectively ended the hopes of bill sponsors to place limits on the state’s use of the President Donald Trump-backed tax credit this year.

Governors are required to opt into the President Donald Trump-backed program, with widespread support from Republican governors nationwide. Polis was one of the first Democrats to announce he would support it. However, Colorado’s next governor will get a say next year on whether the state stays opted into the tax credit program.

The federal program would allow up to $1,700 in annual tax credits for donations made to scholarship-granting organizations. Those organizations could distribute the money for various education-related expenses, including private school tuition, tutoring, or after-school programs.

State Rep. Lori Goldstein, a Westminster Democrat, and other sponsors filed House Bill 1292 to place what they called state “guardrails” that would protect students from disability, race, or gender expression discrimination by organizations accepting the scholarship funds. The bill’s passage might have prevented some religious private schools from participating.

Colorado’s nondiscrimination laws safeguard against discrimination in places of public accommodation based on an individual’s characteristics such as disability, race, or gender expression.

Polis has said he doesn’t want to leave federal money on the table.

A Polis spokesperson had said the governor believed House Bill 1292 “would hamstring the state’s ability to bring new funding for much-needed services” like after-school programs.

Goldstein said after the hearing that the bill faced criticism from private school groups and on social media. But she added the federal government hasn’t released rules that would govern the program and believes there’s an opportunity to revive the bill next session.

“I look forward to continuing this conversation to ensure that these public dollars are truly benefiting public schools and the students that they serve,” she said.

Colorado Democratic governor candidates have diverged on the use of the tax credit.

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet has taken a similar approach to Polis. Meanwhile, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has said he opposes the tax credit.

A Bennet spokesperson said the senator doesn’t support private school vouchers or public funds going to private or religious schools. The spokesperson also said Bennet believes rejecting the program before final guidance is issued “could be short sighted and put millions of dollars that could help kids in Colorado at risk.”

Wesier has said he would opt the state out of the program if elected, because he believes it represents a plan to take money away from public education.

“The next governor will have the authority to decide,” he said in a recent forum. “I will fight it as fiercely as I can.”

Lawmakers extend teacher preparation program amid pleas from parents and students

2026-04-28T21:32:05+00:00

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Colorado lawmakers plan to allow a last batch of high school seniors to take part in a statewide teacher preparation program before it’s eliminated.

The Teacher Recruitment Education and Preparation program, or TREP, allows students to stay enrolled in high school after graduation for up to two years while their school district pays for college classes. Colorado lawmakers on the budget committee decided to eliminate TREP to help balance a 2026-27 state budget that could have a shortfall reaching $1.5 billion.

But amid pleas from parents and students, lawmakers amended House Bill 1357 to allow high school seniors who were set to begin the program this spring to enroll for one year instead of two. The program will end in July 2027.

Parent Stephanie Christian, who rallied a small coalition of parents and students to save the program, thanked state Sens. Janice Marchman, a Loveland Democrat, and Byron Pelton, a Sterling Republican, for the amendment to extend the program.

“While we had hoped for a full pathway allowing these students to complete the program, the one-year extension provides a critical bridge,” Christian said in a text message. “Because of this effort, hundreds of future teachers will still have the opportunity to begin their journey into education, and that impact will be felt in classrooms across Colorado.”

The amendment cleared the House and Senate this week, and the powerful Joint Budget Committee agreed to the plan last week. The bill will now head to the governor’s desk.

The state created TREP in 2021 to help grow the educator workforce. It has a statewide cap of 250 students a year. The program’s elimination will save the state about $3 million a year.

Parents argued that some high school seniors had based many of their financial aid decisions on using the program, which doesn’t allow students to use federal aid. Students also don’t qualify for most scholarships because they’re still considered high school students.

Colorado’s higher education funding formula rewrite takes another shot at putting a focus on students

2026-04-27T23:57:02+00:00

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Five years ago, Colorado lawmakers changed the way the state funds public colleges and universities. Instead of sending money based mostly on enrollment, the plan was to dole out money based on eight metrics that include how well institutions help students stay in school and get to graduation.

But some college leaders say that formula hasn’t worked as intended and instead valued year-over-year funding stability rather than changes that direct money to schools helping more students.

Now, as part of a regular five-year review, state lawmakers are making incremental updates they say will help drive more money to colleges based on how well they educate students. The changes would expand metrics to include whether schools educate more students who enroll part-time or have a greater number of transfers.

Colorado enacted its current iteration of a performance-based funding formula model in the 2021-22 school year. The formula is a set of metrics to direct increases in state funding based on specific, measurable outcomes, including whether a student graduates on time and schools enroll a higher percentage of certain students.

Colorado Commission on Higher Education Chair Jennifer Walmer, whose board crafted recommended updates in House Bill 1345, said she heard many complaints from schools that the formula doesn’t truly reward schools for their student outcomes. But she also said the commission didn’t want to completely reimagine the formula when the state faces budget challenges and the federal government has cut higher education spending.

“I do think that there are mechanisms and flexibilities in the new formula that, with additional resources, could help drive more performance,” Walmer said.

The bill would keep parts of the 2021-22 funding formula intact, including metrics that help determine how much more money schools get for student enrollment, retention, and graduation.

But the proposal would make key additions to the formula in the 2027-28 school year that would better reflect the myriad of ways students interact with schools that weren’t considered in the current funding model.

These include new definitions that better account for transfer students, as well as a provision to ensure part-time students get counted toward funding. Walmer said part-time students make up about half of higher education enrollment statewide.

The proposed formula also creates other levers that lawmakers can use to funnel even more state funding to schools based on their performance on the metrics of student enrollment, retention, and graduation. This means lawmakers would have the ability to reward excellent performance to drive bigger funding changes, Walmer said.

The bill would also alter the name of the formula to “results-informed funding.”

“I do believe that the mechanism changes that we’re making will better serve and better reflect Colorado students,” Walmer said.

The bill has been met with reserved optimism from several higher education leaders.

Colorado Mesa University President John Marshall said he believes the new formula could help solve some of his biggest concerns about how the state distributes money, including how much some schools get in state funding versus others.

Metropolitan State University of Denver President Janine Davidson said the proposed formula updates better account for different types of students, including those that enroll part-time. She said she’s supportive of the changes and hopes lawmakers place a focus on institutions that have been hurt by previous iterations of the funding formula.

She added the state also must boost state funding for higher education institutions. She said a lack of investment in colleges and universities has led to challenges, such as having a group of student advisors at her school that are far smaller than many peer institutions in other states.

“Colorado is not funding higher education,” she said. “And we remain at the bottom.”

House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat sponsoring the bill, said during a committee hearing on the bill last week that she believes the proposed funding formula update will better help the state reward schools for helping students.

But she also agrees lawmakers must adequately fund higher education if the formula is to work as intended.

“I do think that we continue to fall short,” she said.

The bill passed its first hearing in a House Education Committee last week and will next be heard on the House floor. If passed, the Senate would need to approve the bill before sending it to Gov. Jared Polis.

Other sponsors include state Senate President James Coleman, Republican Sen. Cleave Simpson of Alamosa, and Democratic Rep. Eliza Hamrick of Centennial.

How do schools effectively help students? Senate President James Coleman’s legislation aims to find out.

2026-04-23T22:13:13+00:00

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Last year, Colorado Senate President James Coleman nearly filed an “education deserts” bill that would have allowed the state to authorize charter schools in communities with low-performing schools and without local school board agreement.

He decided against it after hearing from traditional public school advocates, school boards, and superintendents that the idea was unfair.

“I could have passed that bill,” said Coleman, a Denver Democrat. “But I understood that folks felt that it was one-sided.”

This year, he’s taken a new approach to find a solution for students he said are falling through the cracks at low-performing schools. He said he’s worked with Colorado reform and traditional school advocates to take a step back from prescribing one model.

Instead, Coleman hopes Senate Bill 170 will bridge a divide between reform and traditional school advocates by creating a task force to study effective schools and answer the question “how can we make sure that every single one of our children are thriving?”

“Let’s maximize the transformative power of a good public education,” Coleman said during a Senate Education Committee hearing on Wednesday. “Colorado educators, school districts, students, and families are proving that changing outcomes for all kids, no matter the circumstances they come from, is possible.”

The legislation, backed by a bipartisan group of sponsors, received unanimous lawmaker approval at Wednesday’s hearing.

The bill would create an 18-member task force in the Colorado Department of Education of appointees from various regions and public school models to study how successful schools effectively close educational gaps.

The members would explore six main points, including where educational gaps are the most persistent, identifying schools that have closed gaps, understanding the strategies that work, and recommending policy to support innovation and improvement.

A final report would be due Jan. 1, 2027, and the task force would cost about $135,000 funded by grants and donations. Coleman said he hopes lawmakers would use those recommendations to share effective policies.

Several traditional and reform school advocates spoke favorably about the bill during the committee hearing.

Colorado Education Association’s Liz Waddick, who is the union’s vice president, said her union and the American Federation of Teachers Colorado support honest efforts to examine the barriers that many Colorado students face.

“We firmly believe that there is progress to be made in Colorado,” she said. “And we should give this task force the space to explore every opportunity to do so.”

Fernanda Cerros with Transform Education Now, a reform-aligned advocacy organization, said the bill takes an important step toward helping students in every corner of the state.

“Understanding where gaps exist and what defines an effective school and how to expand access to those opportunities is critical to ensuring we are doing right by all students,” said Cerros, the organization’s operations manager.

Some lawmakers raised questions, including whether funders would seek a specific outcome and if the task force would focus on what hasn’t worked. Lawmakers also asked about the breadth of the focus, including examining practices at schools that educate students with significant mental health, behavioral, or medical needs.

State Sen. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat, said she voted in favor of the bill because she wanted to give the process a chance and knows Coleman’s agenda focuses on helping kids.

Kipp, a traditional school advocate and former school board member, said policymakers too often fight over whether charter, innovation, or traditional schools are better. But they focus less on propping up effective practices in all schools.

“I believe we are all committed to moving forward in a way that is going to hopefully support every child,” she said. “And if there is a bias, we should be able to figure that out.”

Clarification: April 24, 2026: The story has been updated to reflect that several traditional and reform advocates spoke favorably about the bill. One anti-reform group spoke against it.

Colorado lawmakers want certain felony convictions to prohibit a person from running for school board

2026-04-23T00:08:46+00:00

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Candidates wouldn’t be allowed to run for a Colorado school board if they have a recent conviction for certain violent crimes or felony drug offenses under a proposed state law.

State Sen. Adrienne Benavidez, an Adams County Democrat, said a constituent in her district brought the idea to her. Current law only prohibits a person who has been convicted of a sexual offense against a child from running for school board. Benavidez said the law should be more restrictive.

Benavidez said during a Senate Education Committee hearing on Wednesday that school board members are responsible for the education, health, safety, and welfare of children. But their job is to also protect children and set good examples for them, she said.

The disqualifying convictions listed by Senate Bill 166 include murder, kidnapping, aggravated robbery, and harm against an at-risk adult or juvenile. The bill also says convictions for felony drug offenses such as selling, manufacturing, or dispensing a controlled substance would also bar an individual from running. The bill does say these exclusions would only apply if a person was convicted as an adult.

The bill originally included a lifelong prohibition from running for office for those offenses, but Benavidez and other sponsors amended the bill to allow candidates to run 10 years after they’ve completed their sentence.

“That is basically a recognition that people, even though they did something at some point, if they’ve made amends through this process, they still should be able to participate civically in our communities,” Benavidez said.

The bill passed the committee with a 4-3 party-line vote. Assistant Minority Leader Sen. Lisa Frizell, a Castle Rock Republican, said she would have voted yes on the bill until lawmakers adopted the amendment from Benavidez and others.

Other bill sponsors include Democrats Sen. Cathy Kipp of Fort Collins and Rep. Lori Goldstein of Westminster. The bill now will be heard by the full Senate and, if passed, will head to the House for consideration.

Statewide K-12 funding could increase to $10.2 billion under 2026-27 funding bill

2026-04-20T23:30:11+00:00

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After months of waiting, lawmakers began the process on Monday of moving the state’s school funding bill forward. They must pass it before the end of session on May 13.

Senate Bill 23, known as the School Finance Act, preserves the core of statewide education funding and increases state spending as constitutionally mandated. This means districts and the state would spend $10.2 billion on K-12 education, or an estimated $12,314 per student — an increase of $438 per student over this year.

Lawmakers proposed a $46.8 billion budget in the 2026-27 fiscal year after cutting about $1.2 billion to balance the budget, primarily because of increasing costs in programs such as Medicaid. But next year’s budget shortfall could be as high as $1.5 billion.

Lawmakers filed the School Finance Act in the first week of legislative session in January and well ahead of previous years. But the bill shared only a few details about lawmakers’ plans to fund schools. The full particulars didn’t become clear until a legislative analysis released last week and after budget proceedings were underway in the House and Senate.

State Sen. Chris Kolker, a Centennial Democrat and chair of the Senate Education Committee, said he and fellow lawmakers wanted to file the bill earlier than usual to encourage conversations about it.

And advocacy organizations and school district officials shared during the committee meeting they had plenty of time to talk with lawmakers about the legislation and their funding.

Jana Schleusner, Douglas County School District’s chief financial officer, said giving feedback on the finance act felt more collaborative than past years.

“School finance is a conversation that happens to districts, rather than with them,” she said. “This year has been different.”

The bill passed unanimously in the Senate Education Committee on Monday and will be heard next in the Senate Appropriations Committee. The bill will need to pass the Senate before getting heard in the House. It will then need the governor’s signature.

The bill follows changes renegotiated last year by House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat, to phase in the state’s new school finance formula. The new formula will cost a total of $500 million more a year to implement. Next year, the state will invest 30% of that total, or $150 million, toward fully funding the formula.

Colorado funds education on a per student basis, and the new formula would use a three-year average of the enrollment count next year to determine how much money it puts toward education. That’s a change from a four-year enrollment count in this year’s 2025-26 budget.

The state projects funding about 827,500 students next year, or a decrease of about 14,000 students.

Lawmakers added that they will amend the bill with a new “smoothing factor” to create parameters that ensure districts with declining enrollment don’t see big funding declines and those with enrollment growth can use their most recent enrollment count.

This is an expected change that the Colorado Association of School Executives was tasked with studying since last year’s updates to the 2024 school finance formula.

Colorado schools receive funding from the state and from local taxes.

The state’s share of funding education would increase $214 million next year to $5.6 billion, or a 4% increase over this year. How much counties and local governments would pay would decrease by about half a percent to $4.6 billion

State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Weld County Republican and sponsor of the bill, said the state shifted money from the Kids Matter Fund, which lawmakers created last year as a reserve to fend off budget shortfalls.

“That was good news,” said Kirkmeyer, who sits on the powerful Joint Budget Committee. “So again, no cuts to K-12 funding. It’s fully funded as required under the law.”

As planned, the state would fully eliminate next year ASCENT, or Accelerating Students through Concurrent Enrollment, a program that high school students could use to stay enrolled in high school while attending college. Lawmakers decided to end the program after studies showed high costs to the state and minimal data about how it helps students.

The state’s 2026-27 budget also phases out the Teacher Recruitment Education and Preparation, or TREP, program, which wouldn’t enroll any more students in the fall. The program operates similarly to ASCENT, with the state paying for up to 250 students statewide to stay enrolled in their high school for two years after graduating while they go to college for teaching.

Colorado’s promising universal FAFSA completion policies

2026-04-15T22:07:43+00:00

Colorado lawmakers used a portion of the state’s pandemic relief funds to pilot federal student aid form completion programs in 11 high schools in six districts. Fund My Future, which has federal funding through June, requires students to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid before graduation with districts’ support.

These pilot programs were designed to inform Colorado policymakers about how well a statewide universal FAFSA completion policy could work, especially because students leave tens of millions of federal money on the table each year to pay for college.

The grants have shown promise, and national advocacy groups have taken notice.

Read the rest of this month’s Beyond High School edition.

Colorado parents and students rally to save teacher preparation program from proposed budget cuts

2026-04-08T00:20:32+00:00

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When Joana Baldermann learned state lawmakers might phase out the statewide Teacher Recruitment Education and Preparation program, the news prompted a scramble.

Baldermann and her daughter Cailyn Baldermann were banking on the TREP program, as it is known, to pay Cailyn’s tuition at Metropolitan State University of Denver next year. Now, the Baldermanns need to figure out new financial aid options after lawmakers placed the program for aspiring educators on the chopping block because of a massive budget shortfall.

Cailyn Baldermann hoped to use the TREP program next year to help pay for college.

“Since my freshman year, I have been planning extensively around the TREP program as a foundational step toward my future as an elementary teacher,” Cailyn, an Eaglecrest High School senior, wrote in a letter to lawmakers on the state’s House Appropriations Committee. “Much of my college planning was built around the understanding that TREP would provide a strong pathway to pursuing my education.”

Lawmakers on the state’s Joint Budget Committee have tried to preserve core K-12 funding, but described the potential end of TREP as part of the painful cuts needed to address a budget shortfall that could be as high as $1.5 billion.

The proposal has left some families in a similar situation as the Baldermanns, having to consider new ways to pay for college near the end of the school year when some scholarship deadlines have already passed.

Lawmakers created TREP in 2021 to help grow the teaching workforce. The initiative, capped at 250 participants statewide, allows students to stay enrolled in high school after graduation for up to two years while their school district pays for them to take college classes. Eligible students must have completed one year of specialized education coursework in high school to be considered for the program.

TREP participants also aren’t eligible for college financial aid or most scholarships, since they’re still considered high school students.

State lawmakers have filed House Bill 1357 to eliminate the TREP program. Doing so would save the state about $1.6 million next year, according to a legislative analysis. The 220 students currently enrolled in TREP would be allowed to finish out their education through the program. The following year, the state would save about $3 million.

The bill also reduces how much the state pays to districts for a student’s college education per year from $10,721 to $7,104.

State Rep. Emily Sirota, chair of the powerful Joint Budget Committee and a Denver Democrat, said on Tuesday during a House Appropriations Committee hearing that the cut relieves pressure on the state’s education savings, leaving more money available to fund core services.

Some school districts want to figure out how to continue a similar program if TREP ends.

CTE Director Madison Tortessi with Cañon City High School said she wishes lawmakers would let a last round of seniors enroll in TREP, because some of her students don’t know what to do next. The district has sought permission from the state to prop up a P-TECH elementary education pathway, but it will be too late for this year’s seniors.

About 22 schools participate in P-TECH across the state. The program allows schools to partner with businesses and colleges to prepare Colorado students for jobs.

“We’re really hoping that we get approved for this,” Tortessi said. “And then we don’t have to tell kids, ‘No, you can’t do TREP.’ We can say, ‘You can do this instead.’”

Parent Stephanie Christian said the statewide change leaves many high school seniors like her daughter without an option. Christian has led the charge to advocate for the program, and her daughter Abby plans to attend the University of Northern Colorado in the fall.

House and Senate lawmakers will spend the next week debating the recently introduced budget proposal and its companion bills, including the one to eliminate TREP. Some lawmakers might file amendments that would alter the proposal.

Christian hopes lawmakers will allow high school seniors who want to use the program a chance to do so.

“None of those kids have any money to go to college now without this,” she said. “You have hundreds of kids that are six weeks away from graduating.”

Colorado lawmakers avoid big cuts to education in 2026-27 budget

2026-04-06T23:50:22+00:00

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Colorado lawmakers avoided major cuts to K-12, early childhood, and higher education funding in next year’s budget proposal despite an overall shortfall of more than $1.2 billion.

Major reductions proposed in the bill introduced Monday focus on Medicaid benefits and health care programs. The bill also cuts into the state’s reserves. Lawmakers are required to pass a balanced budget and the School Finance Act before the end of the session on May 13.

Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat and chair of the powerful Joint Budget Committee, said during a news conference late last week that lawmakers wanted to avoid bringing back a maneuver called the Budget Stabilization Factor, which allowed the state to withhold money from constitutionally mandated K-12 funding. Lawmakers also tried to preserve higher education funding but ended up allowing tuition increases that are higher than originally proposed.

Sirota said lawmakers didn’t want to create another education funding hole after they “worked extremely hard over the last many years to dig our way out.”

The Long Bill, as it’s called, proposes that the 2026-27 state budget would grow to $46.8 billion, an increase over this year’s $43.9 billion budget. General fund spending, or the state tax revenue used on the budget, would increase to $17.3 billion, up from $17.1 billion.

Spending on K-12 schools would increase to $10.2 billion statewide, or about $184 million more than this year.

Lawmakers would need to dip into state reserves to fund some of the increase. For example, JBC members propose using the state’s education savings fund to pay for statutorily required increases to funding for special education, English language learners, at-risk students, and others.

Other cuts to K-12 programs

Despite avoiding serious cuts to education, the JBC has proposed smaller reductions.

These include eliminating a statewide program that helps students become teachers, reducing how often certain teachers need to be evaluated, and allowing some students to skip the state’s social studies test. Below are some of the most significant proposals:

Budget lawmakers filed House Bill 1353 to alter the state’s social studies test so it’s administered only to seventh grade public school students. The move would save the state about $303,000 a year.
House Bill 1356 would eliminate a grant program that allows charter schools and districts to create a local accountability system that compliments the state system. The measure would save the state about $507,000.
House Bill 1357 would phase out the state’s Teacher Recruitment Education Program, or TREP, to save about $1.6 million next year and about $3 million in the year after. The idea to eventually eliminate the extended high school program created in 2021 wouldn’t allow schools to designate any new students for the program, meaning many students preparing to use TREP would no longer be eligible.
Colorado lawmakers want to reduce a grant fund to improve state math instruction by about $5.2 million. House Bill 1358 would leave about $3.5 million next year for the program started in 2023 with onetime funding.
Lawmakers proposed halving spending on school bullying prevention grants to $1 million.
The state’s School Counselor Corps Grant Program would also be reduced by $1 million, down to $11 million per year. The grant helps schools hire more counselors and supports training.
The state would reduce adult education and literacy grants by $1 million, bringing that grant fund down to $2 million available through the 2028-29 budget year.
The state would also eliminate the Menstrual Hygiene Grant, or a cut of about $100,000 a year. Budget lawmakers noted that the state requires most schools to provide free menstrual hygiene products for students.

Higher ed and early childhood funding remains stable

JBC members were also able to avoid big cuts to higher education and early childhood funding. Those budgets would only change slightly compared to this year.

JBC lawmakers proposed a slight increase to $6.5 billion in total spending next year on higher education, although a portion of the funding includes programs such as History Colorado.

This means of the total higher education budget, about $1 billion in state support, would go toward colleges and universities. Another $3 billion would come from tuition revenue, according to legislative staff documents.

The state would allow most colleges and universities to increase tuition by 3.5% for resident undergraduate students. The state’s community colleges would be allowed to increase tuition by 5% for residents. And nonresident tuition rates could increase by up to 5%.

The tuition changes would account for $160 million of the $164 million state higher education budget increase.

In-state tuition assistance would remain at $116 per credit hour, or $3,480 per year for a full-time, full-year student.

However, lawmakers did remove about $14 million in state support for residents who attend private colleges and universities.

The state’s early education budget also wouldn’t change significantly. The state proposes to spend about $798 million on those programs, including a $14 million increase for the state’s universal preschool program.

The budget bill took longer this year after lawmakers faced a larger than expected spending shortfall that the state’s budget forecasters have warned could be as high as $1.5 billion. This is the second year that the state has faced a more than $1 billion shortfall, mostly due to increased Medicaid costs. Republican lawmakers have said overspending by Democratic lawmakers is the problem.

The release of the budget now sets up hearings in the House and Senate. Lawmakers will file amendments and debate to finalize the budget. Once both chambers finish their deliberations, the bill will be sent to Gov. Jared Polis to sign into law.

This story has been updated to include the removal of state funding to support Colorado residents who attend private colleges and universities.

Colorado legislation would require schools to share their plans for at-risk students

2026-04-02T00:31:47+00:00

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How do Colorado schools plan to help students who face the most challenges succeed?

A bill progressing in the Colorado Capitol would require each school to answer that question by adopting a plan and then posting it online for its community to see.

Sponsors of Senate Bill 103 say their bill wouldn’t necessarily put more demands on schools to help at-risk students, such as those who qualify for free or subsidized meals. Instead, it would make the ways that schools are helping such students more transparent for the public.

The Senate Education Committee advanced the bill with a 4-3 vote on Wednesday after a mid-March hearing. The proposal will now head to the full Senate for consideration.

Denver North High School student Matthew Pulido, who represented the Denver advocacy group Movimiento Poder during the March 18 hearing of the bill, said every student deserves a good education and the bill creates accountability and transparency.

“All we want is for Colorado districts to be intentional about where attention and support go,” Pulido said. “It’s about giving every student a fair chance.”

Under the bill, schools would need to have an Achieving Community Commitment to Equitable School Success, or ACCESS, policy that says how the school directs additional resources to at-risk students. The school would then post the policy on its own or district’s website.

The bill says schools may include community partnerships — such as access to health clinics, legal services, or college opportunities — in their plans. School leaders would also be allowed to include the wraparound support they provide, such as tutoring, mental health, or after-school programs. And the policy would also allow schools to highlight teacher retention efforts and family engagement strategies.

State Sen. Chris Kolker, a Centennial Democrat and a bill sponsor, said Colorado has directed more money to schools for at-risk students through the state’s funding formula. And most schools he’s talked to already have plans for at-risk students, he said.

“The bill gives them flexibility to promote these things,” Kolker said. “And it says ‘tell us,’ because we’re giving you extra money for this.”

Kolker said he expects further bill amendments because school districts and boards have said this bill replicates the improvement plans that districts must submit each year to the state education department.

The bill has the support of groups such as the Colorado Education Association, Attorney General Phil Weiser, and the Denver Foundation. Opponents of the bill include the Charter Advocacy Coalition, who say that these requirements would be redundant because charter schools already submit plans to the Colorado Department of Education.

Colorado bill would make sure charter schools are considered in local construction ballot measures

2026-03-27T13:00:00+00:00

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Charter school students account for more than 15% of Colorado’s public K-12 enrollment, but advocates say that many charters get far less from local voter initiatives meant to fund construction than the share of students they serve.

A new bill filed last week aims to revise state law to give those schools more consideration from districts in getting their construction needs included on local ballot measures.

According to an analysis by the Colorado League of Charter Schools, a membership-based organization backing the bill, about $15.5 billion was raised from 2015 to 2024 through district ballot measures for construction. Charter schools only received about 3.6% of that money despite a growing share of enrollment.

A legislative analysis of the bill shows the changes won’t cost the state or districts money. And whether this bill increases the amount of taxpayer-approved construction funding for charter schools statewide would be at the discretion of school boards.

Charter schools do also get state money and federal grants for construction and can seek private financiers.

But Dan Schaller, the league’s president, said too many charter schools experience differences in how they work with districts on ballot measures. The goal is to create a fairer process for charter school operators, he said.

“We are approaching things from the vantage point of all public school kids deserve to have their education funded equitably,” Schaller said. “So how do we strengthen the process and make it more clear so that there are adequate opportunities for involvement.”

Colorado school districts can ask voters to raise money for district or charter school construction projects primarily through two methods.

Districts can place a ballot question before local voters to request money to take on onetime bond debt for expenses such as construction or maintenance. Districts can also ask voters to approve a property tax raise for construction, maintenance, or technology upgrades.

Senate Bill 145 would update how districts consider charter school operators in those decisions, including requiring districts to solicit and give consideration to charter school construction proposals.

The bill would also require new timelines for districts working with charter schools on ballot initiatives. And superintendents would need to notify operators about the decision to include or exclude a charter school construction project within a measure.

Bill sponsor state Sen. Scott Bright, a Platteville Republican, said he filed the bill to give charter schools more opportunities to take part in the capital needs discussions.

“Many charter schools have very healthy relationships with school districts,” Bright said. “But in other situations, it’s not always that rosy.”

Bright has held discussions with the Colorado Association of School Boards and the Colorado Association of School Executives about concerns and possible changes to the bill. CASB officials didn’t respond to a request for comment, but a CASE official said in an email that the organization is reviewing the legislation.

Bright also asked Sen. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat, to join as a sponsor. Kipp has served as a school board member and opposed many charter school laws.

She said she agreed to work on the bill because she wanted to ensure the proposal could work for students and districts.

“As much as I’m not a fan of the charter school governance model, I think we have to acknowledge that 15% of the students in the state are being served by one particular method,” Kipp said. “We can treat everybody in a fair manner, because we want all of our kids treated fairly, right?”

House bill sponsors include Democratic state Reps. Lindsay Gilchrist and Andy Boesenecker.

In balancing the budget, lawmakers might consider cutting CMAS social studies testing

2026-03-25T00:11:53+00:00

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Colorado’s standardized social studies test could potentially be a casualty of budget cuts.

Colorado administers the Colorado Measures of Academic Success social studies standardized test to fourth and seventh graders at a select number of schools.

State lawmakers on the powerful Joint Budget Committee have two proposals before them that would create legislation to either cut the social studies test entirely or eliminate testing for elementary school students so the test is given only to seventh graders next year.

By contrast, all students in grades 3 through 11 take standardized math and literacy tests. Science tests are given to all students in grades 5, 8, and 11.

JBC Vice Chair Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat, asked last week for the vote on the two pieces of draft legislation to be delayed but didn’t give an explanation as to why. Legislative staff said the vote could happen as early as this week.

Lawmakers face a more than $1 billion budget shortfall in the 2026-27 fiscal year, and the JBC plays a heavy role in recommendations that balance the budget.

In a statement, spokesperson Eric Maruyama said Gov. Jared Polis supports changes to the state’s current social studies assessment that makes the data more usable and cuts costs. However, the governor doesn’t support eliminating the test.

“The future of our democracy depends on ensuring the next generation understands history, civics, and basic economics,” Maruyama said.

The idea to cut the test has the support of the Colorado State Board of Education, which voted unanimously in August to eliminate the social studies assessment as part of budget reductions, according to a Colorado Department of Education spokesperson.

Cutting the social studies test entirely would save the state $836,000, according to the draft legislation. Requiring only seventh graders to take the test would save about $300,000. The pair of draft bills that would reduce the state education department’s budget by those dollar amounts were written in early March by legislative staff for the JBC to consider.

This type of legislation typically must receive a unanimous vote by the JBC to accompany the budget bill, known as the Long Bill. The entire legislature will then consider the legislation as part of the budget packet.

This isn’t the first time lawmakers have either pared back the social studies test or considered cutting CMAS social studies testing entirely.

The test is required by state but not federal law and has been administered since spring 2014, according to the CDE spokesperson.

Originally, the test was also given to high school students, but lawmakers officially ended a requirement for older students to take it in 2020.

And a group of Democratic lawmakers filed legislation in 2023 to get rid of the social studies test requirements. At the time, a legislative analysis showed the idea would save the state about $1 million annually.

The bill passed the Senate and House, but failed to get finalized before the end of the 2023 session, the state’s General Assembly website shows.

Colorado lawmakers have also filed legislation this year to explore how to reduce testing time for elementary and middle school students taking the CMAS. The bill would create a review committee to provide recommendations, and sponsors said the cuts would also save the state money.

That bill cleared its first hearing in the Senate Education Committee, but must pass the Senate Appropriations Committee and the full chamber before it’s sent to the House for consideration.

Correction: March 25, 2026: The original story incorrectly stated the name of the Colorado Measures of Academic Success.

This story has been updated to include a statement from the governor’s office.

Six Colorado nonprofits that mobilize young people are launching a new statewide coalition

2026-03-19T23:31:09+00:00

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Oliver Godoy stood near the steps of Colorado’s Capitol with more than 100 others on Thursday to celebrate the launch of a new coalition meant to amplify the voices of young people like himself.

The Youth Agency Coalition brings together six Colorado nonprofit organizations with the goal of empowering people ages 16 through 34 like Godoy who want to effect change.

Godoy, 26, said he doesn’t have a lot of experience advocating for policy issues and can get nervous about stepping into the political realm. But the fellow advocates he’s met at Young Invincibles and through the new coalition have empowered him to speak out — especially when he feels like older people dismiss his experience.

Metropolitan State University of Denver student and advocate Oliver Godoy, 26, on Thursday, March 19, 2026, outside the Colorado Capitol in Denver.

“I think this coalition gives young people more power in these spaces where it’s not designed for them to be,” said Godoy, who attends Metropolitan State University of Denver.

The six organizations that make up the coalition are Young Invincibles, New Era Colorado, Rocky Mountain Partnership Cradle to Career, Ednium: The Alumni Collective, Mi Familia En Acción, and UpRISE.

Melanie Kesner, Young Invincibles’ Rocky Mountain regional director, said she hopes the coalition shows even more young people that they have a place in shaping state and local policy.

The coalition will allow them to drive conversations about the issues they care about instead of limiting advocacy to just the areas the six nonprofits focus on. The coalition also plans to hold a June gubernatorial forum that youth and young adults will lead.

Ednium’s Executive Director Richard Maez said when he took over as the nonprofit’s leader, he saw a group of organizations that all shared a common goal to get people ages 16 to 34 involved in policy issues. But the nonprofits have a narrow focus on issues compared to the many that affect young people, he said.

For example, Ednium represents Denver Public Schools alumni and trains and mobilizes them to advocate for issues that include K-12, higher education, and economic mobility. Ednium has supported the state’s financial literacy requirement and workforce readiness legislation.

UpRise has advocated for ways to address nicotine use by young people. And Mi Familia En Acción elevates the voices of the state’s Latino community through building political power. This year, the organization has backed House Bill 1272, which would collect data on how extreme temperatures impact workers.

“We’ve proven to other people that we know what we’re doing,” Maez said of the different advocacy organizations “Now it’s time to say, ‘Let’s do it together.’”

All six organizations have organized to bring young people to the Capitol. But the numbers have often been smaller than what the coalition brought on Thursday.

Lawmakers have also given some young people a voice under Colorado’s golden dome. The Colorado Youth Advisory Council, created in 2008, brings together 40 youth ages 14 to 19 to make policy issue recommendations. The group was even given the ability by lawmakers in 2019 to draft bills, but lawmakers took that power away last year.

After the rally, attendees filed into the Capitol to speak with lawmakers.

Sara Navidi, 24, led a group of four who wanted to talk about healthcare bills. Navidi graduated college in 2022 and has taken time off before medical school to get work experience, including in policymaking.

Navidi currently works with Young Invincibles but has also been active with New Era Colorado. She said she’s found the different organizations might advocate for the same issues at times, but do it separately.

“We’re going to be even better when we collaborate together,” Navidi said.

Young Invincibles advocate Sara Navidi speaks with Sen. Kyle Mullica, a Thornton Democrat, about a health care bill she would like to see passed during a youth advocacy day organized by six nonprofits on Thursday, March 19, 2026, at the Colorado Capitol in Denver.

Others in Navidi’s group said they came to the Capitol for the first time.

Noelle Romero, 24, heard about the day’s events from the Colorado School of Public Health, a collaborative that includes the University of Colorado Anschutz, where she attends school. Romero also will get another master’s degree from the University of Denver.

So many organizations coming together to give young people a space to talk with lawmakers made her feel supported, she said.

“I think if I had come here alone, I’d be terrified,” Romero said.

Godoy said strength in numbers is the point of the coalition.

“We’ve grown up in this world where all these decisions have already been made for us without our say,” Godoy said. “So it’s important for us to voice our opinions, for our voices to be heard, and for people to actually understand that we’re not going away.”

Parents and educators testify for CMAS assessment time review in hopes of finding ‘balance’

2026-03-17T01:11:54+00:00

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Teachers and students are overburdened by the amount of time the state requires them to spend on standardized testing.

That’s the message Senate Education Committee members heard on Monday from Colorado parents, teachers, superintendents, and school board members who testified in favor of Senate Bill 68, which would create a review committee to recommend cuts to testing time for students in grades 3-8.

After the three-hour hearing, the Senate Education Committee voted 4-3 to approve the bill. The bill will now head to the Senate Appropriations Committee. If approved, the bill will need to pass the full Senate and then House before it heads to the governor’s desk.

Kelly Jones-Wagy, a parent in Jeffco Public Schools and teacher in Cherry Creek School District, applauded lawmakers for approving the bill. She believes students, including her own, spend far too much time on state testing. The bill isn’t about ending school accountability but instead “lowering the amount of hours,” she said.

“The more time we take students out of classes,” Jones-Wagy said, “the more time we take them away from their teachers.”

State Sen. Chris Kolker, a Centennial Democrat and a sponsor of the bill, said he filed the bill over concerns from superintendents about the average time students spend on standardized tests.

The state estimates students in grades 3-8 spend about eight to 11 hours a year on required Colorado Measures of Academic Success, or CMAS, math and reading assessments. Meanwhile, high school students spend about three and a half hours on the PSAT and SAT.

The legislation, which has bipartisan support, was also sponsored by state Sen. Byron Pelton, a Sterling Republican, Rep. Eliza Hamrick, a Centennial Democrat, and Rep. Lori Garcia Sander, an Eaton Republican.

This marks a second attempt by Kolker to get the state to address this issue. He filed a bill in 2023 that called for a similar review. The bill didn’t pass, and lawmakers approved House Bill 1241 to create a comprehensive review of the state’s school accountability system.

The 1241 task force review yielded 30 recommendations, including a call to modernize the state’s CMAS exams.

The recommendations included offering the standardized test in Spanish as well as English, returning test results to teachers faster, and breaking CMAS into smaller sections. Lawmakers filed a bill last year to start the implementation of the recommendations. Some of that work is still underway, and another report on the state’s accountability system is expected in November.

The 1241 task force found a need to reduce testing time and discussed the potential for adaptive tests to accomplish that goal. The task force also left the recommendation open to further study.

Some lawmakers who voted against Senate Bill 68 bill, however, said they felt it was duplicative of the 1241 review.

A Colorado Department of Education official also testified that they believe the bill would be redundant. And a group of education advocates have mounted opposition to the bill, including FaithBridge, Ready Colorado, and the Colorado Children’s Campaign.

Teacher Tim Nelson, a former TeachPlus Colorado policy fellow who opposed the bill, said the CMAS test helps him guide instruction by honing in on what students should know. TeachPlus is a national nonprofit that trains teachers to advocate for policy change.

“Using that information, I redesigned lessons and planned new units of study to create more opportunities to practice,” Nelson said.

Supporters who testified in support of the bill included the Colorado Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers Colorado, the Colorado Association of School Boards, and the Colorado Association of School Executives.

Superintendents who testified in favor of the bill said parents have the ability to opt out of the grades 3-8 tests, but more parents might opt in if the amount of time spent on test taking was reduced.

And Harrison School District 2 Superintendent Wendy Birhanzel, who is also president of CASE, said the bill wouldn’t stop the state from administering tests or keep teachers from using them to inform instructions. She said tests are an important part of helping students learn.

“However, we must also be mindful of balance,” Birhanzel said.

As disability accommodations complaints filed with feds languish, parents ask Colorado for help

2026-03-12T00:55:58+00:00

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Ashley Sutton’s daughter was recommended for a plan by Children’s Hospital Colorado that would provide her with accommodations for her disabilities at the beginning of the school year.

But Sutton said she’s run into trouble getting Palmer Ridge High School, which is just north of Colorado Springs, to follow her daughter’s 504 plan. She filed grievances with the district, then tried the state — which said it doesn’t enforce federal disabilities accommodation law.

She then filed a complaint to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. But after that office acknowledged it had received the complaint in December, Sutton hasn’t heard back from the federal government.

“My daughter’s approved accommodation still has not been implemented, and the situation at school has become increasingly difficult for my daughter to navigate,” Sutton said.

It’s a similar story to what other parents and disability rights advocates shared at Wednesday’s Senate Education Committee hearing, where lawmakers heard Senate Bill 125. The legislation would allow Colorado’s Department of Education to begin hearing complaints tied to 504 plans.

The state process created by the bill would expand the Colorado Department of Education’s existing ability to mediate other complaints about alleged violations of students’ Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs. An IEP entitles students to special education services, whereas a 504 plan spells out accommodations that students are entitled to receive in schools.

Lawmakers, who approved the bill unanimously Wednesday, said they hope the bill eventually helps parents like Sutton, given the mass firings and shifting priorities at the federal Education Department during the Trump administration.

The federal Education Department investigates such complaints through its Office for Civil Rights. But many complaints have gone unresolved in the last year due to staff cuts. At the same time, the Trump administration has launched new state investigations, including one in Denver Public Schools related to East High School’s all-gender restrooms.

In light of that lack of progress, Colorado lawmakers are part of a growing number nationwide who want their states to help families find resolutions.

In response to questions from Chalkbeat, Rick Frampton, director of student services for Lewis-Palmer School District 38, where Palmer Ridge High School is located, didn’t comment on Sutton’s daughter’s case. But he said in a Wednesday statement that the district provides families information about Section 504 parent and student rights. He said the district follows a structured process and works with families to implement and develop those plans.

“Lewis-Palmer School District 38 believes in implementing all 504 plans with integrity and a commitment to ensuring that students with disabilities receive equal access to education,” Frampton said.

State Sen. Chris Kolker, a Democrat and bill sponsor, said during the hearing that the bill doesn’t create new requirements for schools.

“As the agency shrinks, its ability to respond to complaints and enforce this law shrinks with it,” said Kolker, the chair of the Senate Education Committee, referring to the federal department. “The new reality is that it becomes a new responsibility of the states.”

The legislation would codify federal disability laws into Colorado state law. These laws, known as Section 504, provide protections to people with disabilities. These include ensuring public schools make accommodations available to students with disabilities to access school buildings or spaces, and that they can participate in nonacademic and extracurricular activities.

The legislation would also create a path for parents, students, or groups to file a complaint to the Colorado Department of Education if schools don’t provide accommodations for students. These grievances would need to be filed within 60 days, with the entire process of resolving a grievance needing to be completed within 180 days. Some exceptions would apply, such as a pause for a voluntary fix of the issue.

Disability advocates said although federal law that protects individuals with disabilities still exists, the federal government has left many families in limbo. The bill ensures Colorado can step in, said Emily Harvey, Disability Law Colorado’s co-legal director.

“It really is a way for families to seek a remedy without having to take extreme measures of going to court,” Harvey said.

Colorado lawmakers also filed House Bill 1141 that would allow the Colorado Civil Rights Division’s to investigate alleged K-12 and higher education violations of Title VI, a section of federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin.

That bill passed its first hearing last month in the House Education Committee by a 9-3 vote and will be heard next in the House Appropriations Committee, where lawmakers will discuss the financial impact to the state.

Both bills will require state spending if they become law. Lawmakers need to make budget cuts for a second year in a row, which has complicated the odds for new state initiatives and mandates that would require funding.

The disabilities bill would require the state to spend about $668,000 in the first year and $581,000 in the years after, according to a legislative analysis. The civil rights enforcement bill would cost the state about $815,000 in its first year and $686,000 in subsequent years. But advocates of the bills have also argued the bills would ultimately save money by reducing the number of lawsuits against schools.

Some who testified about the civil rights bill on Wednesday unsuccessfully asked lawmakers to amend it so that the Colorado Civil Rights Division would be allowed to hear complaints.

Lawmakers said the new complaint process would fit into the Colorado Department of Education’s current enforcement of disability laws. They added that the bill also wouldn’t stop parents from filing complaints to the civil rights division or the federal Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights.

Sutton said a state complaint process would help fix a gap in the system for parents like herself. Her daughter’s health has since gotten worse, and Sutton has had to pull her out of school.

“Every month that systems fail to respond is a month of education that cannot be recovered. She is living that reality today,” Sutton said. “That is why a clear state pathway with independent review matters so deeply for families like ours.”

Colorado’s FAFSA completion rates are up, but advisers worry about who’s getting left behind

2026-03-10T23:40:16+00:00

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Record numbers of students in Colorado and nationwide are filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid after a revamp of the form made it easier, data shows.

But for immigrant families where one or more members is undocumented, whether students complete the FAFSA depends on if they are willing to take the risk at a time of heightened immigration enforcement, college advocates said. Many worry the government will use their information to track them or their family and deport them.

Jesse Ramirez, founder and executive director of a Colorado nonprofit called INSPiRE, recalled a recent conversation with a mom from the Fort Lupton area who was scared to have her daughter complete the form.

“She said, ‘I came here from Venezuela to escape political violence. So why put myself at risk now? They might send me back or worse,’” said Ramirez, whose nonprofit organization helps advise over 2,000 students in the Denver area on how to get to college.

So far this year, about 46% of high school students nationwide have completed the FAFSA form, according to the National College Attainment Network’s FAFSA tracker.

Bill DeBaun, the organization’s senior director of data and strategic initiatives, said in a news conference last month that the nation might exceed 56% of students completing the form — an “all-time high” since tracking began in 2017. This matters because students who fill out the form are more likely to pursue education opportunities after high school.

In Colorado, just over 37% of seniors completed the form by the end of February, or 28,597 students, according to NCAN. That’s about 5,000 more students than last year during the same time period.

That progress so far places Colorado 42nd this year in how well states get seniors to fill out the form.

Ramirez and others report the rates remain lower because students who have the most challenges still aren’t getting the help they need to complete the form.

At the end of February, only 11% of seniors at Colorado schools with 40% or more Hispanic or Black students had completed the form, NCAN’s FAFSA data shows. And 37% of seniors at schools where at least half of their population comes from lower-income backgrounds have completed the form, compared to 45% at schools whose students come from higher income families.

Studies from 2017 show Colorado had about 130,000 students who have a family member without legal documentation. These students have the option to fill out the FAFSA or the state’s Colorado Application for State Financial Aid. The state created the form for undocumented students and those from mixed-status families who don’t want to share their data to the federal government.

Ramirez said FAFSA opens up the possibility for more grant or scholarship aid than the state’s form, and he frequently explains to students and families why filling out the form can be beneficial. He’s worked with families for years, but the current political environment has made families fearful.

He advises families not to wait out the Trump administration and to continue allowing their kids to pursue their dreams, especially because many undocumented individuals already fill out tax forms. He says in some cases it’s better to send kids to college than “sitting around waiting to see if some policy changes or a new administration comes along and then wasting four or five years.”

These one-on-one conversations take time, he said. And the loss of the statewide data tool that showed individual student progress on the form has made working with students more difficult.

Lawmakers cut the tool within this year’s budget to help fill a more than $1.2 billion budget hole. The loss has hamstrung others across the state. Without the tool, college advisors must connect with each student to check their FAFSA progress, said Tam Doane, Colorado Springs’ Peak Education college and financial aid advisor. The nonprofit works with students to help them pursue college or a career. Doane spends two days a week at Harrison High School and Sierra High School helping students prepare for college.

The loss of the tool, Doane said, is “just slowing everything down because I’m calling students multiple times to say, ‘Show me where you are at.’”

Oftentimes, students will think they’ve completed the FAFSA when the federal government might require an extra step, said Jasmine Rainey, Peak Education’s director of access and success.

“Not having that tool that just creates another obstacle for us in order to help students complete the FAFSA and get to college, or whatever their postsecondary plan might be,” Rainey said.

Ramirez said the challenges are a shame during a year where the application is easier and more user friendly. Students still want to chase their dreams, he said, but many need more support to talk through their options.

He takes the wins where he can.

After a long conversation with the Fort Lupton mom, she made a decision about her daughter’s future. She came to the United States for safety and to create a better life for her family, Ramirez said.

While no one can guarantee she won’t get detained, she made the decision to take a “leap of faith” and fill out the FAFSA to help her child follow her dreams.

Colorado lawmakers unveil bill to ask voters to alter TABOR cap and raise more money for schools

2026-03-06T01:07:04+00:00

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Outdated textbooks, large class sizes, and not enough counselors: Colorado education spending has created a situation where there aren’t enough resources, said teacher Wendy Bergman.

“We are constantly stretching supplies, time, and energy,” said Bergman, who teaches social studies at Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins. “Talented, dedicated educators are leaving because of our salaries and our working conditions.”

Educators like Bergman have shared the same message about underfunding for years. Studies show Colorado’s near the bottom in state education funding as a share of total personal income. And state studies released last year show Colorado needs about $3.5 billion to $4.1 billion more annually to adequately resource schools.

On Thursday, a group of Democratic lawmakers announced during a news conference at the Capitol rotunda they’ve filed Senate Bill 135 to help solve that problem.

Joined by Bergman and other Colorado Education Association union members, lawmakers said the bill would ask voters to approve a November ballot measure to increase state spending on K-12 education by 2% each year for the next 10 years.

“For too long, we have asked our schools to do more with less,” said bill sponsor Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat who is vice chair of the state’s Joint Budget Committee. “Now is the time to do something different. It is time to fund our schools.”

But history shows getting voters to approve that kind of change might be difficult.

The ballot measure would effectively retool the cap in the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, that mandates how much the state can spend each year. The cap is based on a formula that accounts for inflation and population growth, and the state must return any excess tax revenue above the cap to taxpayers.

The proposed change wouldn’t raise taxes on residents. Instead, the bill would reduce the size of taxpayer refunds.

Lawmakers estimate the state would keep about $200 million more a year to pay for K-12 education, or about $2 billion over the next 10 years. And the money would not only help pay for statewide education expenses, but free up state money to pay for other priorities, lawmakers said.

The bill calls the new funds the Positive Factor — a nod to a mechanism known as the Negative Factor that lawmakers used for nearly 15 years to pull education funding away from schools to balance the budget. (It was also called the Budget Stabilization Factor.)

Lawmakers celebrated their elimination of the factor in the 2024-25 budget during a Taylor Swift-themed rally where they declared the state would never get “back together” with the Negative Factor.

But that jubilation may have been premature. Bridges said the state is in a difficult budget situation this year that’s only going to get worse. And lawmakers might need to use the Negative Factor once again and withhold money from schools starting in the 2026-27 budget year due to an $850 million budget hole, he said.

Despite Colorado’s overall budget increasing, TABOR only allows the state budget to grow so large, and state lawmakers face higher costs in programs like Medicaid, he said.

“I think legislators are starting to understand how dire this is,” Bridges said. “It’s a bad year.”

House Assistant Majority Leader Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat and bill sponsor, said she wants voters to know that the revenue cap on state government was created in 1992, when classroom instruction looked a lot different.

“2026 is not 1992,” she said. “And costs have gone up more than inflation.”

Republicans have questioned the need for the bill. In January, Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Weld County Republican who also sits on the state’s Joint Budget Committee, said she wouldn’t support the proposal and that Democrats should work within the TABOR cap.

“We’re not in a recession,” she said at the time. “It’s not like we have less revenues coming in.”

Voters have rejected several efforts to alter TABOR since a 2005 revision.

Colorado Education Association President Kevin Vick said the teachers union has extensively researched whether voters would support such a measure.

“What voters are telling us again and again is they’re sick and tired of seeing their kids’ favorite teachers not being able to make it in education in Colorado,” he said. “And they understand that that is largely due to just a complete lack of resources in our system right now.”

Vick said the bill already has support from the Colorado Children’s Campaign, the Colorado Rural Schools Alliance, Colorado Association of School Boards, and Stand for Children.

About 40 Democratic House and Senate lawmakers have also signed on in support of the bill.

Colorado bill would tee up merger of over 100 higher education and workforce programs

2026-03-05T01:59:06+00:00

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A bill introduced Wednesday by a group of Colorado lawmakers would begin the process to unite the state’s higher education department with numerous workforce development and labor programs.

House Bill 1317 has bipartisan support and represents a prominent higher education proposal by lawmakers this session. It’s essentially the legislative vehicle for a major initiative Democratic Gov. Jared Polis introduced last year, and would jumpstart a process that’s expected to end with the next governor in 2027.

In December, Polis announced a plan to form a new Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development after a report he commissioned recommended the merger.

Lawmakers want the new agency to help Coloradans get the education and training needed for good-paying jobs. A news release said the bill would bring together over 100 programs and initiatives focused on higher education, workforce training, and employment.

“For too long, Colorado has had a siloed approach to connecting workers and students with good-paying, in-demand jobs,” said Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat who is a sponsor of the bill, in the news release.

The bill would form a 26-member advisory committee appointed by Polis, McCluskie, and Senate President James Coleman, a Democrat. The bill would require appointees to represent different state geographic regions from various sectors that include leaders in business, higher education, workforce development, and education advocacy.

The committee would begin meeting before July and produce a transition plan in November focused on how to unite the state’s labor, workforce, and higher education programs.

The idea is similar to work undertaken by governors in other states to improve the connections between education and the workforce. For example, Missouri merged its higher education and workforce development offices in 2018 into a Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development.

And President Donald Trump has moved education department functions involving career and technical education and K-12 into the labor department in an attempt to focus more on preparing students for jobs.

The bill has support from various state workforce and higher education leaders and is sponsored by state Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican, Sen. Jeff Brides, a Greenwood Village Democrat, and Sen. Lisa Frizell, a Castle Rock Republican.

Some Colorado lawmakers want state ‘guardrails’ on Trump-backed education tax-credit program

2026-03-04T22:30:21+00:00

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Several Democratic state lawmakers have filed a bill that says private schools in Colorado that participate in a federal tax-credit scholarship program would need to abide by nondiscrimination laws that protect LGBTQ+ students and others.

Already, the bill filed last week has drawn concerns from Gov. Jared Polis, who has opted Colorado into the program that would allow an annual tax credit of up to $1,700 for donations made to scholarship-granting organizations. These organizations would then distribute scholarships to help families pay for private school tuition, tutoring, or after-school programs.

Governors across the country are required to opt into the program backed by President Donald Trump, and Polis was one of the first Democrats to announce he would do so. But opponents worry the program would effectively bring school vouchers to Colorado, an idea that voters have rejected in the past. Polis has said he doesn’t support school vouchers — which provide public dollars to families to pay for private school tuition — and doesn’t believe the tax-credit program is a voucher.

Concerned that Polis could veto an attempt to stop Colorado from participating in the federal program, the lawmakers behind House Bill 1292 said they decided to go this route instead.

“We can’t stop the governor from opting into this,” said Sen. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat and sponsor of the bill. “We can do the best we can to put some guardrails around its use so that these programs don’t discriminate against students.”

Colorado’s nondiscrimination laws safeguard against discrimination in places of public accommodation based on an individual’s characteristics such as disability, race, or gender expression.

The bill’s passage could prevent some religious private schools from participating. The state is already embroiled in a legal dispute about whether these schools can deny certain students entry to publicly funded preschool programs.

In a statement, Polis spokesperson Eric Maruyama said the governor sees the tax credits as a way to increase charitable giving that supports students, the majority of whom attend public schools. Polis is not interested in leaving money on the table, he said.

“Governor Polis is concerned that HB26-1292 would hamstring the state’s ability to bring new funding for much-needed services like afterschool programming and tutoring for all students across the state,” Murayama said.

Lawmakers are postponing a hearing on the bill until the federal government finalizes rules that would govern the program, said Democratic state Rep. Lori Goldstein, who represents Westminster and Northglenn. She also wants more time to talk with those affected by the bill and ensure the best version gets heard by lawmakers. It’s unclear when final federal rules will be released.

Goldstein said that she hopes her idea will encourage Coloradans to donate to organizations that serve all students and “public entities that they’re familiar with,” such as public education foundations.

The bill would require the state to list all eligible scholarship-granting organizations, including private schools. Those organizations would need to comply with nondiscrimination laws, including any related to students with disabilities.

The bill says that religious schools would still maintain their mission, hiring decisions, and the ability to offer religious instruction and worship.

Sen. Janice Marchman, a Loveland Democrat, said lawmakers plan to file amendments that would allow the state to vet the scholarship-granting organizations.

The bill is opposed by the Colorado Association of Private Schools and Christian Home Educators of Colorado. Neither organization responded to a request for comment for this story.

Several school districts and the Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, have offered their support for the bill.

The education tax-credit program will begin in 2027 and was established by last year’s “big beautiful bill.” Families earning up to 300% of area median income would qualify for the program. The program has the potential to generate billions of dollars nationwide for private school tuition and other educational expenses at no cost to the states.

Although Polis wants Colorado to participate, the decision might hinge on the state’s next governor. Polis is term limited, and the next governor could decide to reverse his decision when they take office in 2027.

Beyond High School: Should Colorado consolidate its colleges?

2026-03-04T16:26:53+00:00

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Could consolidating Colorado’s public colleges and universities save the state money? A new report from the Common Sense Institute, a nonpartisan research organization that focuses on free market and economic policies, says yes.

The January analysis says Colorado would save about $25 million a year by consolidating some of its public colleges. States such as Utah have realized cost savings by merging schools that offer two- and four-year degrees, the report says. These dual-mission institutions require 30% less taxpayer funding per student, according to the report.

Colorado already has several dual-mission institutions, including Colorado Mountain College, Adams State University, and Colorado Mesa University.

The report says some other colleges that are not dual mission operate near or alongside each other, such as the three colleges on Denver’s Auraria Campus. It identifies the three schools at Auraria and two in Pueblo as potential candidates for consolidation.

The analysis says those five schools spend a total of about $5.3 million on executive salaries. Consolidation into two schools — one in Denver and one in Pueblo — would bring down salary costs by about $1.7 million.

The report arrives at a time when private college mergers are increasing nationwide, and states face mounting financial pressures that could limit investment in public higher education. Although Colorado has increased higher education funding in recent years, it has also faced significant budget challenges.

A separate analysis from the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association suggests mergers can help institutions respond to changing political and economic conditions. While older case studies indicate consolidations can maintain educational quality, the report suggests also considering the impact on students.

“It is important to measure how a college merger might affect college access and success either through the elimination or expansion of academic programs, and through changes to staffing and student support services,” the report says.

Higher ed stories from Chalkbeat

Colorado ballot measure would use Pinnacol Assurance proceeds for workforce training — The idea would provide an alternative to Gov. Jared Polis’ plan to sell the quasi-governmental agency while also boosting a variety of workforce training programs.

Colorado lawmakers want to help parents who feel ‘ghosted’ by the federal Office for Civil Rights — State Reps. Jacque Phillips and Jennifer Bacon want to provide Colorado parents with more ways to report allegations that their child is being harassed or discriminated against at school.

Colorado bill would let schools and colleges seek gun confiscation under ‘red flag’ safety law — Supporters say that by involving the institutions, Senate Bill 4 would help educators who are not familiar with the process file these petitions.

Colorado lawmakers want to create a ‘thriving’ designation for some colleges and universities — Sponsors say their bill would help schools attract students from diverse backgrounds.

115 Colorado students rally to strengthen the state’s ghost gun laws — Students Demand Action rallied to support legislative updates that would place further limitations on ghost guns, which are created through kits or parts manufactured by a 3D printer.

Misdemeanor convictions wouldn’t prevent some Colorado teachers from getting hired if new bill passes — Current law says that teacher licensure applicants must disclose most misdemeanor convictions regardless of the date of the conviction.

What we’re reading

Young adults fight for future as Colorado faces tight budget Colorado Public Radio

University of Denver braces for up to a $30 million budget shortfall next year The Denver Post (Paywall)

Chancellor calls for ‘big, audacious ideas’ to lead CU Boulder’s future Boulder Daily Camera (Paywall)

Epstein’s ties with academics show the seedy side of college fund-raising The New York Times (Paywall)

Affirmative action ended. So why are these Maryland colleges more diverse than ever? Baltimore Banner

Should students spend less time testing? Some Colorado lawmakers want a statewide review.

2026-02-28T01:14:20+00:00

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A group of bipartisan Colorado lawmakers want to reduce the time Colorado students in grades 3-8 spend on state standardized tests.

State Sen. Chris Kolker, a Centennial Democrat, said he talked to superintendents and principals across the state and heard complaints about the disparities in testing time among grades. The state estimates students will spend about eight to 11 hours on required Colorado Measures of Academic Success, or CMAS, math and reading tests. Meanwhile, high school students spend about three and a half hours on the PSAT and SAT.

The purpose of a bill Kolker is sponsoring, Senate Bill 68, is “to shorten the seat time for third through eighth graders on our CMAS,” he said. But the bill wouldn’t do that outright. Instead, it would set up a review committee to study the idea because he wants to get educator input about possible changes.

The bill is sure to add fuel to the ongoing debate about the state’s school accountability system and how it tests students. Kolker sponsored a similar bill about three years ago that failed.

Already, Colorado education advocacy groups have questioned the necessity of the new bill. The state is still in the midst of a comprehensive review of its school accountability system ordered by a bipartisan 2023 law, and some groups think that review should wrap up before lawmakers propose additional changes to standardized tests.

The so-called 1241 task force met for over 150 hours and dozens of meetings and created 30 recommendations, including a call to modernize the state’s CMAS exams. The recommendations included offering the standardized test in Spanish as well as English, getting test results to teachers faster, and breaking CMAS into smaller sections.

The implementation is still underway, with another bill approved in 2025 enacting or phasing in some of the recommendations while calling to further study others. The 26-member committee never recommended shortening exam times.

Kolker said his bill would create a separate 12-member review committee. He wants shorter tests that still meet federal requirements. The guidelines don’t say how long these tests should take, but mandates reading and math tests in grades 3-8 and at least once in high school.

Jamita Horton, who is the executive director of Teach Plus Colorado, said Colorado already tests students near the federal minimum requirements. Teach Plus Colorado is the state affiliate of a national nonprofit that trains teachers to advocate for policy change.

She said she understands the bill’s intent, but the 1241 task force didn’t tackle the testing times because it wasn’t viewed as a problem.. The teachers she works with aren’t as concerned about it, she said. (Teach Plus’ former executive director served on the task force.)

The state should instead build a better system that proves to families that tests are an important part of the classroom experience, she said. Recommendations from the 1241 task force seek to create less administrative burden and get usable information back to teachers faster. She doesn’t want the state to lose focus on that work.

“I think it’s important that we honor those conversations,” she said.

But Kolker said he hopes shorter tests could lead to fewer parents opting out their kids from the exam and cost savings because the state would spend less money on administering the tests. He said that would help the state during a time when it faces budget challenges.

He also has a personal tie to the bill’s goals. His daughter needs test accommodations, and she spends more time on average on exams than other students, he said.

For some students with disabilities, he said the test is “just a nightmare.”

Colorado Children’s Campaign also has expressed skepticism about whether this is necessary right now. The nonprofit organization advocates for policies that focus on helping kids.

Madi Ashour, the organization’s director of K-12 education policy, said standardized tests are important because they help educators and families understand where learning deficiencies exist among different groups of students.

“We did a lot of work to come to consensus recommendations. We’re still implementing and studying,” Ashour said. “I don’t know if it would produce a different result.”

Others disagree. Prairie School District R-11J Superintendent Chris Burr said he’s long been skeptical of the time spent on standardized tests and supports the review.

He said too much time passes between when the students take the test and when teachers get the results, making them unhelpful for targeting instruction. He’s skeptical about whether students should take the exams but certain the state can test students “in way less time.”

The bill is scheduled to be heard on March 9. Other sponsors include state Sen. Byron Pelton, a Sterling Republican, and state Reps. Eliza Hamrick, a Centennial Democrat, and Lori Garcia Sander, an Eaton Republican.

Colorado bill backed by students could provide kids with free passes to the zoo, museums, and more

2026-02-26T00:47:59+00:00

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Thomas Jefferson High School junior Mai Travi has visited Denver’s zoo, museums, recreation centers, and much more, thanks to the city’s MY Denver Card.

The card has provided Denver youth ages 5 to 18 with free access to those opportunities since 2013. But she thinks more of her peers could benefit.

“Students who live outside the Denver area often have fewer opportunities to explore the cultural educational and enrichment experiences that help shape who they become,” she said.

There’s a chance lawmakers will end up agreeing. House Bill 1055 would create a pilot program in a limited number of communities outside of Denver to give students in grades 6-12 a similar My Colorado Card. The card would essentially be a free pass, not a voucher with dollars attached to it.

The bill passed its first hearing in the House Education Committee on Tuesday with a 7-5 vote.

Students involved with a Denver-based nonprofit organization called FaithBridge helped craft the bill that’s sponsored by state Rep. Mandy Lindsay, an Aurora Democrat. FaithBridge is an advocacy organization that helps students advocate for educational improvements.

“When students have access to out of school activities such as public museums and recreation centers, they’re able to explore their interests and find a passion, same as I was,” said Jack Baker, who is also a junior at Thomas Jefferson High School and is involved with the nonprofit.

The program would be administered by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and sunset in 2031. The participating communities would be selected in December.

Denver school board member Marlene De La Rosa, who testified in support, said the city has provided over half of Denver’s 90,000 students with a MY Denver Card, which is funded by Denver tax dollars approved in a 2012 ballot measure.

“They represent safe spaces, friendship, physical activity, cultural exposure, academic reinforcement, and community connection,” she said. “And if one program and the city can reach 45,000 youth, imagine what a statewide investment can do.”

The My Colorado Card program would have to be funded through gifts, grants, and donations, the amended legislation says. It would cost about $250,000 in its first year and about $80,000 in subsequent years, according to a legislative analysis. The bill would also require a report to lawmakers that would evaluate the program.

Although no one testified against the bill during the Tuesday committee hearing, some lawmakers expressed reservations about the program, including its cost and whether it represented an appropriate role for state government.

Rep. Lori Garcia Sander, an Eaton Republican, said she wanted to know more about how the card would be used and what data would be collected on students.

Lindsay said the MY Denver Card helped her kids figure out their interests and more youth deserve that opportunity.

“I think we really need to listen to young people when they are telling us and asking us for what they want,” she said.

Correction: Feb. 25, 2026: A previous version of this story misstated the first name of student Jack Baker.

Two competing Colorado bills want social media companies to quickly respond to law enforcement

2026-02-20T15:00:00+00:00

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After a student at Evergreen High School wounded two other students in a September shooting, Jefferson County Sheriff Reggie Marinelli knew laws needed to be changed.

“When this happened, I brought all of our legislators together,” Marinelli said, referring to lawmakers who represent the county, “because the bottom line is we work in this community. We live in this community. These are our kids. These are our citizens. We just want to make sure that our community is safe.”

Last week, Marinelli stood with those lawmakers to announce state and federal legislation she helped craft in an attempt to prevent school shootings. A similar bill whose lead sponsor is from neighboring Douglas County was already making its way through the legislature, setting up a showdown that pits lawmakers responding to a tragedy in their backyard against those seeking to resurrect parts of a bill that was vetoed by the governor last year.

The bills would require social media companies to respond more quickly to law enforcement about suspicious online activity like the posts written by the 16-year-old Evergreen High School shooter Desmond Holly, who killed himself after the shooting.

State law currently gives social media companies 35 days to respond to a warrant.

The FBI started an investigation before the shooting into several suspicious social media posts made by the shooter. The FBI filed three warrants during the monthslong investigation, which began in July. But Jefferson County law enforcement didn’t know until after the shooting that it was Holly who’d made the posts because the process moved too slowly, Marinelli said.

On Thursday, Democratic state Rep. Tammy Story, of Evergreen, and Sen. Lisa Cutter, from Jefferson County, filed the legislation that Marinelli helped craft. Senate Bill 1255 would require social media companies to acknowledge a warrant within eight hours and comply within 24 hours unless a judge grants an extension.

The bill also calls for social media platforms to report certain threatening or illegal content to local law enforcement within 24 hours and says the state attorney general could enforce compliance.

The legislation has some similarities to a bill filed in January by Sen. Lisa Frizell, a Castle Rock Republican, and a bipartisan group of sponsors. That bill cleared the Senate this week and is on its way to the House.

Frizell’s bill represents a second effort at tackling aspects of last year’s Senate Bill 86, which Gov. Jared Polis vetoed. Senate Bill 86 would have required much more action from social media companies, including reports and taking down flagged accounts. Polis deemed it “fatally flawed” because it had the potential to infringe on free speech rights.

Frizell, who is the House assistant minority leader, said she and her fellow sponsors slimmed down this year’s bill, Senate Bill 11, to address concerns from the governor. Similar to Senate Bill 1255, Senate Bill 11 would require social media companies to acknowledge a warrant within eight hours but would give them 72 hours to comply. It would also require online platform operators to make a staffed hotline available to law enforcement.

Frizell said she has worked with community groups, including Blue Rising Together, on this issue for almost two years and doesn’t plan to work with Cutter or Story on their bill. She noted that Cutter and Story voted against her bill last year.

“My bill is moving quickly, and I want it to move quickly, because I want it on the governor’s desk and I want him to sign it,” Frizell said. She said she didn’t see any benefit to working together.

Cutter said she voted against Frizell’s bill last year because she had similar concerns to Polis. But Cutter said she agreed with the aspects of Frizell’s bill that would have improved social media companies’ responses to law enforcement.

Story said Thursday that she didn’t remember why she voted against last year’s bill, but noted that it was more broad than just the warrant requirements.

At the federal level, Democratic U.S Rep. Brittany Pettersen filed three Congressional bills inspired by Marinelli that would seek to prevent violence. Pettersen represents Jefferson County, parts of the Denver Metro area, and parts of several mountain counties.

The first bill would set a nationwide standard requiring social media companies to respond to warrants and subpoena requests regarding potential threats of violence within 72 hours. Lawmakers have noted that a Colorado law wouldn’t change warrant response times if a post is flagged in another state.

The second would allow grants for cities and counties to buy and distribute safe firearm storage boxes to community members. The last would create a grant program through the U.S. Office of the Attorney General to provide $500,000 for assistance and training on extreme risk protection orders, which are a court order to remove firearms from individuals who present a risk to themselves or others.

The social media bills aren’t the only legislation that state lawmakers hope to pass this year to curb gun violence. Lawmakers have also filed an update to the state’s ghost gun legislation they said would prevent access to home manufactured guns like the one reportedly used in the 2023 shooting at Denver’s East High School.

Misdemeanor convictions wouldn’t prevent some Colorado teachers from getting hired if new bill passes

2026-02-13T00:46:40+00:00

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People applying for a teaching license in Colorado wouldn’t have to report a misdemeanor conviction that’s seven years or older unless it involves a young person or at-risk adult under a bipartisan bill that unanimously passed the House Education Committee on Thursday.

The current law says that teacher licensure applicants must disclose most misdemeanor convictions regardless of the date of the conviction. The law exempts misdemeanor traffic offenses or traffic infractions.

Sponsors said House Bill 1090 aims to knock down barriers for prospective teachers who have made past mistakes. The bill could also help address a statewide teacher shortage. Colorado had about 2,800 vacancies to start the 2024-25 school year and about 600 positions were never filled, according to Colorado Department of Education data.

Many people feel embarrassed about previous legal issues, and that can stop them from getting a teaching license, said Rep. Matthew Martinez, a Monte Vista Democrat and bill sponsor. Before he became a lawmaker, he worked with incarcerated students at Adams State University.

He said many people who have committed crimes want to change their life.

“And sometimes they are the best teachers and the best mentors,” Martinez said.

Other bill sponsors include state Rep. Stephanie Luck, a Penrose Republican, and Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat.

Martinez and Luck said they chose the seven-year timeframe because it’s closer to what most private businesses use.

The bill uses the state’s definition of an at-risk adult, which is a person with a developmental or physical disability or a senior.

During Thursday’s meeting, Colorado Association of School Executives lobbyist Elisabeth Rosen said the bill makes sense, and there wasn’t any testimony against it. A legislative analysis says the bill wouldn’t require additional costs to the state.

“We all from the school district and teacher perspective hope to move this forward,” Rosen said.

Luck said qualified teaching candidates shouldn’t be prevented from becoming teachers for a misdemeanor such as joyriding or shoplifting. Most of the people that she’s heard from were young when they committed an offense, she said.

“Some of us have had bad days that have resulted in criminal behavior. Some folks have been caught; other folks have not been caught,” Luck said. “I don’t think that after seven years, if it is a certain type of crime, we should continue to remind them of that bad day.”

Luck and Martinez amended the bill before its passage to remove a section that would have exempted private school educators who worked with a Colorado school for more than two years from having to apply for a professional license. Martinez said the amendment narrowed the focus of the bill, and the sponsors would try to take up the issue at another time.

115 Colorado students rally to strengthen the state’s ghost gun laws

2026-02-11T23:25:50+00:00

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Colorado students assembled on the steps of the Colorado Capitol’s West Foyer on Wednesday with a familiar message to lawmakers: Pass more gun control reform measures.

It was the Colorado Students Demand Action chapter’s fourth rally since local students ramped up organizing efforts in the wake of a 2023 shooting at Denver’s East High School. The organization helps mobilize high school and college students to advocate for gun violence prevention measures. Colorado’s chapter is the largest of its kind in the country, national organizers said.

About 115 students gathered to support ghost gun legislation that seeks to update a 2023 law that made it illegal to assemble, possess, or sell a gun without a serial number. Ghost guns are created through kits or parts manufactured by a 3D printer. A student reportedly used a ghost gun during the 2023 East High School shooting.

The students want lawmakers to approve House Bill 1144, which would ban the private manufacturing of unfinished gun frames by 3D printers as well as the possession and distribution of 3D gun blueprints.

Regis Jesuit High School student Cadelaine Hausknecht, 16, said she attended STEM School Highlands Ranch in 2019 during a school shooting. She said recent legislative victories mean very little if lawmakers don’t pass updated laws to stop the creation of illegal guns.

“All of the work that we’ve done in making sure that there are better background checks and mental health checks, none of it matters if somebody can just print a firearm at home,” she said.

During the rally, lawmakers said advancements in 3D printing equipment since the 2023 law mean that the state’s ban on ghost guns needs updating.

“This bill is vital to furthering safety here in Colorado. 3D-printed firearms and their components have become more accessible, affordable, and advanced,” said state Sen. Katie Wallace, a Longmont Democrat sponsoring the bill. “These types of weapons are untraceable and pose a serious threat to public safety and to each one of us.”

Bill sponsors also include Democratic state Reps. Lindsay Gilchrist of Denver, Andrew Boesenecker of Fort Collins, and Sen. Tom Sullivan of Centennial.

Since 2023, students have supported gun reform laws approved by Colorado lawmakers, including the ghost gun legislation and updated red flag gun law measures that allow for the temporary removal of a person’s guns if they’re a danger to themselves or others. Lawmakers also want an update to the state’s red flag gun laws this year.

“Students have shown up. We have testified more times than we can count. We have balanced AP classes, sports, jobs, and college applications, yet we are still here because this is about safety,” said Grant Kramer, an East High School student. “It is about our futures. We are asking lawmakers to show the same commitment.”

Colorado lawmakers want to create a ‘thriving’ designation for some colleges and universities

2026-02-06T00:46:17+00:00

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After federal cuts to colleges and universities that enroll high percentages of students of color, Colorado lawmakers want to create a new state designation that would signal that certain campuses are a welcoming place for those students.

House Bill 6 sponsors state Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, a Glenwood Springs Democrat, and state Rep. Matthew Martinez, a Monte Vista Democrat, said Colorado Mountain College leaders talked to them about the idea after $350 million in federal discretionary grant funding cuts to Minority-Serving Institutions, also known as MSIs. These colleges were allowed to apply for grants because they enrolled a certain percentage of students of color, including Hispanic and Native American students.

The bill would create a Thriving Institution designation that its sponsors say would help schools attract students from diverse backgrounds, including students of color and those from low-income backgrounds. It would require schools to do more than just enroll a high percentage from these backgrounds.

An advisory committee of state, college, and business leaders would establish designation criteria, such as metrics on students’ ability to complete a degree.

The department would annually post which schools in the state earned the designation, according to the bill. Lawmakers would also receive a yearly report on the standards for the thriving institutions, as well as lessons learned by the schools to support students.

Sen. Dylan Roberts, a Frisco Democrat, also is a sponsor. The bill passed on Thursday after its first hearing in the House Education Committee with an 8-4 vote.

If passed, a legislative analysis says the designation would cost the state more than $180,000 a year. However, sponsors amended the bill to change the data the advisory committee would use to bring down the costs. Due to budget challenges, the sponsors want gifts, grants, or donations to fund the work. And there wouldn’t be any monetary assistance for students.

“We don’t have any funding to add to that, but we know that higher ed institutions can utilize that in their marketing and as something to achieve for their schools,” Velasco said.

Colorado Mountain College’s Yesenia Silva Estrada said the college backs the bill because this designation would not just show who the school enrolls, but how well it serves them. The college has worked with higher education institutions across the state on the bill, said Estrada, CMC’s vice president of planning and chief of staff.

“We believe that this is a bill that can really help the state redefine what it means to serve students well,” she said.

Colorado lawmakers have supported a similar effort in recent years to create a First-Generation Serving designation to help students who are the first to go to college in their family see the efforts in place at schools.

Before the federal cuts, the Trump administration expressed criticism of the MSI designations because it contended they’re “discriminatory and create racial quotas.”

Statewide, federal cuts most affected two-year colleges and schools that enroll more students from rural communities. The Trump administration redirected the money to Historically Black Colleges and Universities and tribal colleges, which the federal government defines based on the history of the institution or who controls them.

The new designation would tell families and students that Colorado and higher education institutions still care about their success after federal cuts, Martinez said.

“We still want to honor these institutions that are doing the good work and supporting minority students and really putting in the work to prioritize them,” he said.

Colorado bill would make bilingualism endorsement available to high school graduates

2026-02-06T00:03:30+00:00

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A new bill would help Colorado students get recognition at graduation for being fluent in more than one language.

Colorado lawmakers created a process in 2017 for districts to create a seal of biliteracy to be awarded at graduation. Students earn the endorsement if they show proficiency in English and another language through grades and tests.

House Bill 1028, which passed the House Education Committee Thursday with an 8-5 vote, says only 55 of the state’s 179 school districts offer a biliteracy seal. This disproportionately leaves out students in rural districts, small schools, or districts, the bill says.

The bill creates a new bilingualism diploma endorsement and expands the ability of schools to offer biliteracy and the new bilingualism endorsements.

Students in districts that haven’t created their own endorsement would still have to have good grades and take tests measuring competency in English and another language. They would be able to work with a college, university, or a Colorado Department of Education-approved educational nonprofit partner to get one.

State Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, a Glenwood Springs Democrat, said bilingual students live in every corner of the state, but too many can’t showcase their mastery. The endorsements help demonstrate students’ abilities to employers and colleges.

“On the Western Slope, many of my school districts are majority minority, and we want to make sure that kids are able to elevate their skills no matter where they live,” she said.

The bill would require the Colorado Department of Education to set uniform statewide educational requirements for the bilingualism endorsement. Districts that don’t have a program could work with a college or educational nonprofits for a fee.

The bill will be heard next by the House Appropriations Committee. Lawmakers who are against the bill said they want bill sponsors to find ways to eliminate financial costs.

The bill projects to cost the state an additional $36,000 in the first year and about $25,000 in the years after. This year, bills that carry a financial investment face more scrutiny due to the state’s budget challenges.

Jorge Garcia, chair and CEO of the Colorado Association for Bilingual Education, said during committee testimony the current seal has helped students access scholarships and get the recognition they deserve for their abilities. His organization supported the 2017 law.

“In the spirit of continuous improvement, we see the opportunity for us to go even farther, the opportunity to increase access,” he said.

Other sponsors include Rep. Lorena Garcia, an Adams County Democrat, and Sen. Lisa Cutter, a Littleton Democrat.

Colorado bill would let schools and colleges seek gun confiscation under ‘red flag’ safety law

2026-02-02T22:38:08+00:00

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Colorado Senate lawmakers gave crucial approval Monday to a bill that would update the state’s “red flag” gun laws to allow K-12 schools and colleges to request that someone’s guns be temporarily confiscated.

Under the current law, individual educators such as teachers and college professors can already make such a request. The bill would allow an educational institution itself to do so, too. Supporters say that by involving the institutions, Senate Bill 4 would help educators who are not familiar with the process file these petitions.

Colorado’s law for extreme-risk protection orders allows law enforcement to confiscate a person’s firearms for up to a year if a judge determines that the person poses a danger to themselves or others. The law was updated in 2023 to add educators, physicians, and mental health professionals to the list of people who can ask that someone’s guns be temporarily removed in response to a safety threat.

State Sen. Tom Sullivan, an Aurora Democrat who sponsored the bill, said he wants to add institutions as well to help streamline the process and add a layer of support for their employees. Along with K-12 schools and colleges, the bill adds healthcare and behavioral health treatment facilities as qualified petitioners.

“Teachers, doctors and therapists were not trained to fill out the forms to file this type of paperwork,” Sullivan said. “That is why it is so important to allow the institutions, hospitals, and others to file because that’s what they were trained for. It’s also what they have the time to do.”

Senate lawmakers approved the bill on second reading after substantial debate. The Senate must pass the bill on a third reading before it can go to the House for consideration.

State Rep. Meg Froelich, an Englewood Democrat, is the House sponsor.

Republican lawmakers and gun rights advocates oppose the bill, including some who object to “red flag” laws more broadly. They said the bill infringes on gun owners’ rights and privacy. They also argue the change would allow petitioners to hide behind their employer or even file a false report.

State Sen. Lynda Zamora Wilson, an El Paso County Republican, said during the debate that the orders can be extremely costly to gun owners and presume guilt.

She said this bill treats owners who have a petition filed against them “like criminals while denying them the rights afforded even to the guilty. By increasing the number of petitioners, this bill multiplies these injustices.”

Republican lawmakers sought to pass numerous amendments on Monday, including one to require listing the name of the individuals involved, such as a teacher or healthcare worker, when an institution files a petition. None of them passed. Democratic lawmakers said the ERPO form already calls for an individual’s signature to file the petition, and the punishment for a false report is perjury.

The bill to allow institutions as petitioners doesn’t include a significant financial impact on the state.

A Colorado Office of Gun Violence Prevention report says between 2020 and 2024, 692 petitions were filed under the “red flag” law. Of these, a judge granted 478 temporary orders and 371 final orders. While full orders last a year, a temporary extreme-risk protection order lasts 14 days.

Along with educators and medical and mental health providers, a person’s family or household members, law enforcement officers, and district attorneys can ask for a petition.

Experts report few educators have used the law since the 2023 update. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has sought to help teachers and college educators understand the law, including a training called the ERPO Curriculum for Educators.

Shalyn Kettering, legal counsel to Weiser, said during a committee hearing last week that individuals who file ERPOs want to be able to elevate concerns to their employers. Weiser has supported these laws and said they’re not used enough.

“It’s been clear from these conversations that clarifications are required of the statute to better match what’s happening on the ground,” Kettering said.

Evie Hudak, who testified last week on behalf of the Colorado PTA, said children have lived in the shadow of mass shootings. She also referenced last year’s shooting at Evergreen High School, where a 16-year-old student wounded two classmates before taking his own life.

“We strongly believe that this bill will help keep our children safer,” Hudak said. “Teachers spend a lot of time with our children and are aware of their potential for violence.”

If the bill is passed during the session, it would be the third time the state has updated its extreme risk petition orders laws. The original bill passed in 2019 and was sponsored by Sullivan, who has been a leading gun control advocate since his son was murdered during the 2012 Aurora theater shooting.

Colorado lawmakers file the School Finance Act early. But will that really help districts?

2026-01-30T23:54:19+00:00

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Every year, Colorado school districts must scramble to finish their budgets before June 30. But state lawmakers typically don’t approve the School Finance Act, which signals how much state money districts stand to receive, until the last days of the legislative session.

The timing of the bill’s passage has been a point of contention for school finance officers, who have called for changes for years.

“We try to hold everything off until we know the state picture,” said Mike Madden, finance director for Delta County Joint District 50.

This year, a group of lawmakers have sought to fix that problem, filing the School Finance Act on the first day of session, the earliest it’s been filed in recent years. However, the effort might be mostly symbolic, because state education funding remains vulnerable to other budget maneuvers.

School administrators said lawmakers have a history of cutting money from schools in different ways due to budget challenges. Last year, legislators facing a $1.2 billion budget shortfall cut school funding through a renegotiation of a funding formula approved just a year earlier. In previous years, lawmakers cut funding through the Budget Stabilization Factor, which allowed them to use constitutionally mandated school funding for other priorities.

This year, with the state facing an $850 million budget hole, Madden and other finance officers said they’re wary that further cuts in the 2026-27 fiscal year funding will occur. They’re also concerned about federal budget impacts, and a proposed change to how the state calculates Specific Ownership Tax, although it might not kick in immediately. Coloradans pay these taxes every year when they register their vehicles.

Jana Schleusner, Douglas County School District’s chief financial officer, said that changes lawmakers have made to school finance are hard for families and taxpayers to follow, but that they amount to balancing the state budget on the backs of schools.

“If you’re going to cut, stop playing these games around the edges, and let’s be real about what we’re doing to education,” Schleusner said.

Sponsors aim to make school discussion a priority

This year’s budget conversations are just getting underway, and it’s unlikely the Joint Budget Committee will make any major decisions until after the state’s March revenue and economic forecast.

State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Weld County Republican who sits on the JBC, said she filed the School Finance Act ahead of time to get fellow lawmakers to make school funding the legislature’s first priority. State Sen. Chris Kolker and Rep. Eliza Hamrick, both Democrats from Centennial, are also sponsors.

The bill calls for $10.2 billion in statewide education funding, compared with about $10 billion this year. The calculations are based on the baseline funding promises made last year, Kirkmeyer said

“Funding education should come first,” said Kirkmeyer, who is running for governor.

Kolker said he understands why finance officers are so wary about cuts. He said he will fight to preserve school funding based on the promises lawmakers have made.

“I filed this bill to make it transparent and try to lessen their apprehensions, because these school finance officers need to know early what they’re getting so they can then set their budgets,” he said.

School district budget pictures get murkier when lawmakers propose cuts to state education funding, said Terry Kimber, Widefield School District 3’s chief finance officer.

For example, last year’s change to the school finance formula left districts scrambling to understand how much they would get from the state. District administrators held off on hiring staff, he said, and educators didn’t know whether they’d get a raise.

Many sources of concern over funding

It’s unclear whether lawmakers writing the state budget will decide to try to make funding changes for schools again this year, said Tracie Rainey, Colorado School Finance Project executive director.

What’s certain is that lawmakers have a tough budget outlook that will require many cuts, she said. “I think that’s what’s going to determine a lot of this, more than just the intent behind school finance,” she said.

District leaders are worried about how federal funding cuts might impact schools, Rainey said. The state has sued the Trump administration over these cuts.

They’re also worried that lawmakers will make statutory changes that calculate how Specific Ownership Tax revenue counts toward what schools get from the state.

Colorado’s school finance formula does not count all Specific Ownership Tax revenue as money collected by a district, according to state budget documents. This is important because some districts have asked local voters to approve additional taxes for schools. The law says the extra tax revenue doesn’t get counted against the districts in determining what they get from the state.

Changing state law to count all Specific Ownership Tax collected would increase how much districts are expected to pay toward education and decrease what the state needs to pay. This would decrease the state’s obligation toward schools by about $200 million.

Budget documents released on Jan. 23 propose for this change to be phased-in over two years: the 2027-28 and 2028-29 budget years.

School leaders have pushed back on the proposal. Kolker and others have committed to ensuring the idea doesn’t pass.

Kimber said he just wants lawmakers to keep the promises they’ve made after years of uncertainty.

“When we make these agreements,” Kimber said, “they should stand by them.”

Beyond High School: Colorado’s higher ed enrollment trends

2026-01-30T15:36:38+00:00

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In November, I reported that the Colorado Community College System continued to increase the number of students enrolled at its schools. College officials were especially pleased that more older adult students enrolled this fall.

But how do the enrollment trends in Colorado compare with the rest of the nation — not just at two-year institutions, but also at four-year universities? Data released this month by the National Student Clearinghouse provide some context.

Enrollment at Colorado’s community colleges grew by 2,500 students, or 3.9%. That’s a higher rate than the national average of 3%.

Meanwhile, enrollment at the state’s four-year public universities dropped by about 1,000 students, just a half-percent decline. Enrollment also dipped at Colorado’s four-year private universities by 8.7%, or about 2,500 students.

Nationwide, enrollment at four-year public universities rose, while enrollment at four-year private universities fell. Colorado is following the second trend but diverging from the first.

While the drop at Colorado’s four-year public institutions is statistically small, it’s worth noting that sustaining enrollment will only get more difficult for them. Due to declining birth rates, fewer high school students will graduate in the coming years, and that’s expected to create more competition among colleges to attract students.

The Clearinghouse data also shows universities are enrolling fewer international students this year after the Trump administration’s broader campaign to curtail immigration and student visas.

Higher ed stories from Chalkbeat

Gov. Jared Polis reflects on his education legacy in his final State of the State address — Polis heads into his last year in office having implemented full-day kindergarten, created a universal preschool program, restored school funding to state constitutionally mandated levels, and focused on workforce training.

2026 Colorado General Assembly: The people’s guide to following education issues — Want to follow along with K-12 and higher education issues in the legislature? Here’s what you need to know.

As another budget shortfall looms, Colorado lawmakers aim to preserve K-12 education funding — During Chalkbeat Colorado’s Legislative Preview event, lawmakers on the Senate and House education committees fielded questions on K-12 and higher education issues.

7 Colorado education issues we’re watching in 2026 — Will the so-called student enrollment cliff affect Colorado higher education institutions this year?

What we’re reading

Colorado Department of Higher Education’s new leader starts during a time of transition The Denver Post (Paywall)

Colorado State University Chancellor Tony Frank announces retirement Fort Collins Coloradoan (Paywall)

Trump’s admissions data collection strains college administrators The Hechinger Report

Investigations and a billion-dollar ‘shakedown’: How Trump targeted higher education The New York Times (Paywall)

How Trump’s second term has changed higher education WBUR

Colorado lawmakers want to help parents who feel ‘ghosted’ by the federal Office for Civil Rights

2026-01-30T03:37:42+00:00

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Two Colorado Democratic lawmakers plan to file two bills they hope will help Colorado make up for the void left behind by the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal Office for Civil Rights.

State Reps. Jacque Phillips and Jennifer Bacon want to provide Colorado parents with more ways to report allegations that their child is being harassed or discriminated against at school. The Trump administration’s cuts last year to the federal office, which enforces civil rights laws in schools, have caused some families’ complaints to stall.

One proposal aims to codify the Colorado Civil Rights Division’s response to and enforcement of K-12 and college Title VI violations, or discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin. The other would allow the Colorado Department of Education to hear and rectify complaints about public schools that aren’t following 504 plans requiring them to provide accommodations and accessibility to students with disabilities.

Rep. Phillips from Thornton is drafting the disabilities accommodation bill in hopes the state will step up as an increasing number of complaints to the federal Office for Civil Rights aren’t being resolved.

“What I’m hearing from parents is they’re taking too long,” said Phillips. “They can file an OCR complaint, but then they never hear anything back.”

Rep. Bacon of Denver plans to file a bill focused on civil rights violations in schools such as discriminatory discipline practices or unequal access to programs. State Sen. Chris Kolker, a Centennial Democrat, is expected to sponsor both bills.

The Office for Civil Rights’ workforce has been significantly reduced under the Trump administration. At the same time, instead of investigating complaints about unequal treatment of LGBTQ students or those of color, the administration has directed the Office for Civil Rights to focus on policies related to transgender students and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

This has led to slower federal response to some cases but also a slate of new investigations and violations, including one in Denver Public Schools related to East High School’s all-gender restrooms.

The Colorado Civil Rights Division already takes public school civil rights complaints. Enforcement of federal law at the state level also happens in other states. But Colorado civil rights advocacy organizations have said the state’s process is difficult to navigate and slow.

Bacon’s bill would define discriminatory education practices, spell out the way parents can levy a charge against a public school, and provide the timeline and process to investigate, resolve, and monitor the complaint. Parents would have 180 days to make a charge instead of the current 60 days.

Under the bill, the Colorado Civil Rights Division would also report to lawmakers how many cases it gets annually and the outcome. The division would be allowed to consult with the Colorado Department of Education on how to fix issues.

Higher education institutions would be required to designate a Title VI coordinator to ensure institutional compliance.

Bacon said the bill would help parents better understand the process and actions the division would take and make clear the state’s enforcement role.

“Because this president doesn’t care about it, we’re not going to say to our constituents, ‘Nobody’s going to help you,’” Bacon said.

Phillips’ bill would create a process for how the Colorado Department of Education would receive and investigate 504 complaints. The department currently doesn’t investigate these violations. Instead, the federal Office for Civil Rights is charged with enforcement.

The plans are an agreement between a parent and the school that describes a student’s disability and identifies accommodations or modifications they need, such as more time to take a test or the use of an elevator.

The Colorado department does investigate allegations regarding Individualized Education Programs under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. These plans require specialized instruction for students with disabilities.

If Phillips’ 504 bill becomes law, the department would need to receive a complaint within 180 days of a violation, investigate, find or enforce a solution, and monitor the outcome.

Most 504 complaints filed to the federal Office for Civil Rights were fixed quickly by schools and then monitored by the federal government, said Phillips, who is a special education lawyer. The process has slowed since federal cuts, and that leaves schools liable, she said.

“I think this will also protect the schools from a personal injury case,” Phillips said.

A spokesperson for the Anti-Defamation League Mountain States said it plans to support Bacon’s bill because it will protect students from discrimination and harassment.

AdvocacyDenver Executive Director Pam Bisceglia said she backs the Phillips bill because families right now feel like the Office for Civil Rights has “ghosted them, and that there are so many significant changes that they’re not responsive or investigating those allegations of discrimination based on disability.”

Disability Law Colorado Co-Legal Director Emily Harvey said her organization backs the 504 bill because it would create a way for families to find a resolution that isn’t entirely adversarial.

“I really hope that it gives students a pathway to get what they need,” she said.

The bills will face challenges due to a state spending deficit of about $850 million because the legislation could call for additional funding to the state agencies.

The two proposed bills represent a year of work by the lawmakers. Last April, Kolker called a hearing to discuss the changes at the Office for Civil Rights by the Trump administration. Advocates and former OCR employees testified cuts have left families without an important avenue for recourse and reconciliation if their child experienced discrimination.

Colorado ballot measure would use Pinnacol Assurance proceeds for workforce training

2026-01-23T00:15:00+00:00

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A coalition of education-minded business leaders is proposing a Colorado ballot measure that calls for fully privatizing a state-run insurance provider and using the proceeds to help residents access workforce training.

Pinnacol Assurance, which provides workers compensation insurance, operates like a private mutual insurance company but, as a state political subdivision, gets certain state and federal tax exemptions. Its future has been a matter of political debate for years, especially because the company’s leaders have wanted to sell insurance out of state, but can’t because of its state ties.

The proposed ballot measure puts pressure on state lawmakers to figure out how to separate Pinnacol from the state government or risk letting voters decide its fate.

Colorado is facing an $850 million budget hole for the next fiscal year. Gov. Jared Polis’ 2026-27 budget proposal called for Pinnacol to pay the state $400 million for the right to convert to a private company. Polis proposed using that money to pay for priorities such as K-12 education and health care. The company’s leaders called Polis’ proposal a step forward but expressed reservations about how much money should go back to the state.

The proposed ballot measure was filed last week by Colorado Succeeds, which aims to draw on business leaders to help solve education problems in the state. The initiative needs about 124,000 signatures to make the November ballot.

The measure would provide an alternative to Polis’ plan while also boosting a variety of workforce training programs. These include apprenticeships, as well as programs that were propped up by one-time federal pandemic relief funds that offered free training opportunities in fields like teaching, healthcare, and skilled trades.

Polis spokesperson Shelby Wieman said on Wednesday that Polis still backs his budget proposal and thinks state lawmakers should figure out how to proceed with Pinnacol, rather than leaving it up to voters.

“The ballot proposal would convert Pinnacol but lacks robust feedback from workers and employers alike and significantly undervalues Pinnacol as a state asset,” Wieman said.

The ballot measure would generate less than Polis’ proposed $400 million. It would use $150 million from a Pinnacol trust established in 2002 when the company partially separated from the state to create a so-called Skilled Workers and Trades Fund. The measure would generate an additional $10 million per year for the fund from ending Pinnacol’s state tax subsidies.

Scott Laband, president of Colorado Succeeds, said he expects the fund to provide scholarships of up to $3,000 per year for eligible Coloradans and support workforce training for about 5,000 Coloradans a year.

The measure would allow Pinnacol to become fully private by 2027.

“Pinnacol was created to serve Colorado’s workforce,” Laband said. “So this is a direct connection to continuing that mission by investing in the workforce skills that are needed to be successful in Colorado’s labor market and economy.”

Laband said he views the ballot measure as a win for Pinnacol, lawmakers, and students. The state has pieced together funding for some workforce training programs through one-time funding and grants, he said, while this measure represents an opportunity to invest in training that will benefit the industries Pinnacol has supported for years. The organization’s measure would provide sustained funding and evolve with the workforce needs of Colorado, he said.

Polis’ Pinnacol proposal, by contrast, is a short-term solution that would provide one-time funding to cover a state budget deficit, Laband said.

“It makes more sense to make this a legacy asset so residents can get good paying jobs and become contributors to the state economy,” Laband said.

A Pinnacol Assurance spokesperson said in a statement that the company’s board hasn’t yet taken a position on the ballot measure or the governor’s budget proposal. The company’s priorities are to “represent the best interests of our members and workers, paying an appropriate price for a full separation, and maintaining the capital to support workers across the state,” the statement reads.

The statement added company leaders are encouraged by the ballot measure’s focus on long-term workforce development and skills training.

“Through Pinnacol’s own leadership in this space, we have seen firsthand how training and vocational support can transform the lives of Colorado workers,” the statement says. “Expanding this commitment through additional investment in skills training also supports the needs of our economy, helps prevent future workplace injuries, and ultimately lowers costs for employers.”

Democratic House and Senate leaders didn’t commit to the measure as they mull how to approach the Pinnacol situation and the state’s budget hole.

Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie said in a statement on Thursday that Pinnacol will be a big topic this legislative session that has generated a lot of different ideas for its future.

“I look forward to reviewing the ballot measure in more detail and talking with stakeholders who are engaging in the Pinnacol conversion conversation,” she said.

Senate President James Coleman said in a statement that he’s committed to looking at all options to address this year’s budget shortfall. The proposed ballot measure wouldn’t allow lawmakers to have a say over the funds, he said.

“Any decision would benefit from deliberation and oversight from the (Joint Budget Committee) and legislature as a part of the holistic budget picture,” he said.

Colorado Democrats plan ballot measure to raise money for schools

2026-01-16T04:35:11+00:00

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Colorado Democrats plan to file legislation this session that would ask voters for permission to raise the state spending cap by billions while also increasing funding for education.

The idea, brought to lawmakers by the Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, is the most recent proposal to retool the state’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights. TABOR, as it’s known, limits the state’s revenue growth, making it hard to spend more money on schools and other priorities.

CEA President Kevin Vick said the measure would be placed on the 2026 ballot and will ask voters to raise the TABOR spending cap by the amount of the current general fund education budget, which is about $4.5 billion in the 2025-26 year.

The measure would essentially exempt current K-12 general fund spending from TABOR, which restricts state revenue growth to the rate of inflation plus population growth. The maneuver would make room under the cap to allow the state to keep money for education and other priorities instead of returning that money to voters as TABOR requires.

“We need to see some advancement and some improvement in our funding,” Vick said. “Otherwise, we’re just going to be floundering like we have in these last few years.”

Colorado has put more money toward schools for the past few years, but a pair of studies commissioned by state lawmakers concluded the state needs to spend $3.5 to $4.1 billion more to provide students with an adequate education.

The proposed measure would increase school funding by about 2% — or about $90 million — each year for 10 years.

The initiative would help solve two major issues.

The funding would help pay to adequately teach students statewide. And lawmakers have faced spending deficits due to increasing costs in programs such as Medicaid. This year, lawmakers will need to cut more than $800 million to balance the 2026-27 budget after trimming over $1 billion in the 2025 legislative session.

Republicans are expected to push back on any measure that would alter the TABOR cap.

Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Weld County Republican who also sits on the state’s Joint Budget Committee, said Democrats have long bemoaned TABOR when their “addiction to spending” is the problem. She said she wouldn’t support the proposal.

“We’re not in a recession,” she said. “It’s not like we have less revenues coming in.”

Left-leaning tax policy groups have said state spending has only grown modestly in the last two decades, causing spending on basic needs like education to lag behind. Democrats have also pointed to TABOR for years as limiting what can be spent on education and other priorities.

Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat who is the Joint Budget Committee vice chair and plans to sponsor the legislation, said he’s worried the current TABOR spending limits mean the state won’t be able to maintain recent investments in K-12 education. That includes the continued implementation of the state’s new school funding formula, which is in its first year, and eliminating the Budget Stabilization Factor in the 2024-25 school year.

The funding formula will be phased in over seven years and require $500 million more for education. And the Budget Stabilization Factor allowed lawmakers to divert billions in constitutionally mandated education funding to other priorities. Bridges said he doesn’t want to return to pulling money away from schools.

“We are fighting every year to just keep what we’ve been able to accomplish,” he said. “This allows us to not only do that, but to continue to invest in our schools.”

Voters have rejected several efforts to alter TABOR or raise the spending cap since the spending cap was last revised in 2005.

A progressive coalition also wants voters to amend the Constitution to move Colorado to a graduated income tax rate. The measure, which would be on the 2026 ballot, would also raise billions for the state to spend on priorities such as health care and education.

Vick said he believes the measure his organization has pitched can succeed because the teacher union’s public polling shows overwhelming support for increasing K-12 education funding.

CEA polls say voters by a 2-to-1 margin are willing to give up their TABOR rebates to put more money toward improving education, Vick said. More money going toward schools would help retain teachers. Colorado’s teacher turnover rate remains high, he said.

“I think voters and people in the community are really concerned that they are seeing their kids’ favorite teachers leave the profession year after year, simply because they can’t make a go of it in this state,” he said. “We have to stop that churn as a state, and we have to make sure that our educators can live in their communities.”

Gov. Jared Polis reflects on his education legacy in his final State of the State address

2026-01-15T23:24:14+00:00

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In his final State of the State address, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis reflected on his education legacy after two terms in office.

Polis heads into his last year in office having implemented full-day kindergarten, created a universal preschool program, restored school funding to state constitutionally mandated levels, and focused on workforce training. His ambitious agenda will run up against budget challenges again this year as the state faces an $800 million deficit at the start of this year’s legislative session.

Polis, who is term-limited and will leave the post in 2027, said his passion for improving education drove him to public service. He started his political career on the Colorado State Board of Education.

“Twenty-six years ago, I was driving around the state in an old school bus campaigning for the State Board of Education, demanding more investment in Colorado schools to ensure every student could get a high quality education and thrive,” he said. “Education is about opportunity and hope.”

State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Weld County Republican who is running for governor, was critical of Polis’ education legacy. She said Republicans were instrumental in getting Polis to allocate more funding to education over the years.

Kirkmeyer criticized Polis for retooling the state’s new funding formula just a year after it passed, which changed how much funding school districts received this year. Polis’ budget for the next school year calls for an increase in state education funding despite a tough budget scenario.

“If it wasn’t for the work that Republicans have done, myself included, to ensure that we eliminate the Budget Stabilization Factor and then guarantee that we’re going to fund education and put it in statute, I think he would have come in with an education cut again this year,” she said, referring to a previous state practice of cutting education funding to pay for other priorities

State Rep. Matthew Martinez, a Monte Vista Democrat, said Polis deserves major credit for prioritizing education, including helping usher in a new school funding formula and eliminating the Budget Stabilization Factor, which diverted billions in mandated education funding from schools.

“To me, that’s a huge legacy, being able to readjust, update the formula, and making sure that it makes sense for everyone in Colorado,” Martinez said.

Polis criticized the Trump administration for some of Colorado’s budget difficulties. The administration has withheld federal funding from the state, and Polis needed to call a special session last year to address federal budget changes that caused a $750 million shortfall.

Colorado also faces about an $800 million shortfall this year due to the need for more spending to maintain programs such as Medicaid.

In his speech, Polis didn’t mention two lawmaker-commissioned reports that say the state needs about $3.5 billion to $4.1 billion more a year to adequately fund education. Lawmakers have said they want to find ways this year to increase the pot of money for Colorado education, which ranks near the bottom in the nation in terms of funding.

Polis said in a news conference after his speech that his focus this year is on the preservation of K-12 funding and reining in healthcare costs. But he didn’t offer any specific ideas for how to bring in more revenue for education.

“We need to make sure that we have budget stability over the long term,” he said.

2026 Colorado General Assembly: The people’s guide to following education issues

2026-01-12T19:55:50+00:00

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Every January, 100 people elected to the Colorado General Assembly gather in Denver for 120 days and make decisions that affect students and teachers in the classroom, university administrators trying to balance their budgets, and parents and students having to make tuition payments.

There are only two bills that legislators have to pass before they adjourn in May: a balanced budget and the school finance act. Both have profound implications for educational opportunity.

Lawmakers also tackle many more education issues, from school meals to school safety, from what students should learn in the classroom to workforce training.

But it can be hard for ordinary citizens to understand how ideas turn into laws.

To explain the lawmaking process and the opportunities for public input, we’ve prepared this guide to the legislative session that starts Wednesday, and how you can get involved:

How a bill becomes a law

Think Schoolhouse Rock’s “I’m Just a Bill.”

Legislators get ideas for bills from a lot of places. A legislator might have a passion for a particular topic. The governor’s office or leaders of state agencies might request a policy change. An interest group or ordinary citizens might ask a lawmaker to help solve a problem.

Lawmakers work with bill drafters — nonpartisan legislative staff — to write a bill. Once a lawmaker introduces it, leaders in either the House or the Senate assign it to a committee, usually one with relevant expertise.

Most education bills go to a chamber’s education committee, but a bill on youth mental health might land first in the health committee, or one on police in schools might be heard by the judiciary committee.

A few committees — most infamously the State Affairs committees — are known as “kill” committees, where leadership can send controversial bills, especially those from the opposing parties, to ensure they don’t reach the floor.

A bill must win committee approval to proceed to the full House or Senate. Some bills might need to go through more than one committee.

Bills must get approved twice in the first chamber, before heading to the next chamber, where they go through the process all over again. Bills can be amended at any point in the process, and both chambers must sign off on the same final form of a bill for it to clear the legislature.

Then the governor decides whether to sign it into law.

Who has a vote on the Colorado education committees

For this session, the House Education Committee has 13 members — eight Democrats and five Republicans:

Chair Rep. Meghan Lukens, a Steamboat Springs Democrat
Vice Chair Rep. Matthew Martinez, a Monte Vista Democrat
Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat
Rep. Mary Bradfield, a Colorado Springs Republican
Rep. Ava Flanell, a Colorado Springs Republican
Rep. Lori Garcia Sander, an Eaton Republican
Rep. Lindsay Gilchrist, a Denver Democrat
Rep. Eliza Hamrick, a Centennial Democrat
Rep. Anthony Hartsook, a Parker Republican
Rep. Dusty Johnson, a Fort Morgan Republican
Rep. Jacque Phillips, a Thornton Democrat
Rep. Katie Stewart, a Durango Democrat
Rep. Tammy Story, a Conifer Democrat

Find the committee schedule, documents, and live and archived audio of its meetings at the committee website.

The Senate Education Committee has seven members — four Democrats and three Republicans:

Chair Sen. Chris Kolker, a Centennial Democrat
Vice Chair Sen. Janice Marchman, a Loveland Democrat
Sen. Scott Bright, a Platteville Republican
Sen. Lisa Frizel, a Castle Rock Republican
Sen. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat
Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet, a Commerce City Democrat
Sen. Janice Rich, a Grand Junction Republican

Find the committee schedule, documents, and live and archived audio of its meetings at the committee website.

Find the names and contact information of all current Colorado lawmakers here. And find maps of current legislative districts here.

Can you speak on a bill or submit testimony?

If you’re interested in having your perspective heard, there are a few ways to get involved.

You can speak on the bill in person or remotely, or submit a written statement to the committee. The sign-up process is not difficult. Just fill out this online form.

Speakers are generally limited to two to three minutes, so think about how to make your point quickly and clearly.

Want to know the schedule?

The full schedule of the House and Senate can typically be found online on the Colorado General Assembly website’s landing page.

The session schedule should be posted daily and gets updated as bills move through the process.

How to look up Colorado General Assembly bills

Looking for a bill online? Go to the Colorado General Assembly’s bill search page. There you can search by a bill number, the sponsor, or a topic.

When you click on a bill, you’ll see a summary of what the bill does, the full text of the bill, and other relevant information, such as a fiscal note that explains how much passing the law would cost the state. Often the description of a bill in the fiscal note is easier to understand than the bill language itself.

You can also search through tabs near the bottom of the page that include the bill’s history, when it’s scheduled to be heard again, any amendments, and a summary of the committee votes.

What’s the Joint Budget Committee, and why is it so important?

The six-member Joint Budget Committee is the most influential committee in the Colorado General Assembly. Why? Because it writes the budget that guides the state’s priorities. The committee members this year are four Democrats and two Republicans, with Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat, as chair.

Yes, Gov. Jared Polis does submit a budget every November. And the governor’s priorities guide the Joint Budget Committee’s work. But the committee ultimately writes the budget that gets submitted to the General Assembly for approval.

Other lawmakers also have a chance to submit budget amendments that reflect their own spending priorities — but lawmakers need to pass a balanced budget, and the Joint Budget Committee will strip out amendments that endanger that goal.

The budget shapes every facet of state government, including K-12 and higher education spending.

Learn more about the budget process here.

Want to know more about the education topics we expect to come up this session?

We held our annual legislative preview event on Jan. 6, focused on the education issues we expect lawmakers to consider in 2026. You can watch a recording here.

Need a refresher on what happened last year? We rounded up the education bills of the 2025 session.

Want to know more about how lobbying affects the legislative process? Check out our deep dive on education lobbying, produced in collaboration with data reporter Sandra Fish.

Have questions or a tip? We’re listening at co.tips@chalkbeat.org.

National editor Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

As another budget shortfall looms, Colorado lawmakers aim to preserve K-12 education funding

2026-01-09T22:41:46+00:00

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Colorado lawmakers will need to focus heavily on how to further education priorities in another difficult budget year, five members of the state House and Senate education committees said during Chalkbeat Colorado’s annual Legislative Preview event Thursday.

State Sen. Janice Marchman, a Loveland Democrat who is vice chair of the Senate Education Committee, said lawmakers won’t be able to put much money toward new policies during the 2026 legislative session, which starts on Wednesday.

“We have a budget shortfall again,” Marchman said. “A big push this year is going to be keeping our education funding for K-12 as solid as it can be.”

Gov. Jared Polis has proposed a 5.2% increase in the state’s 2026-27 budget, including a $276 million increase for education that would bring total statewide K-12 spending to about $10.3 billion. Although the proposed $47.9 billion budget is higher than last year, rising state costs, especially to maintain Medicaid spending, have outpaced state revenue.

Lawmakers will need to cut about $800 million to balance the budget. At the same time, lawmakers are working through uncertainty about federal funding after the Trump administration froze money for safety nets and other programs.

Colorado also faced a deficit last year that forced lawmakers to cut more than $1 billion in spending. The state’s education budget increased, but lawmakers reworked the state funding formula to help balance the budget.

Rep. Matthew Martinez, a Monte Vista Democrat who serves on the House Education Committee, said preserving K-12 education funding is near the top of his list this year.

He said maintaining the education budget “is paramount, especially in this tight budget year. We want to be able to make sure that we are delivering for our students, our faculty, and our school districts.”

Along with Marchman and Martinez, three other state lawmakers joined Chalkbeat Colorado for the event. They were:

Sen. Scott Bright, a Platteville Republican
Rep. Meghan Lukens, a Steamboat Springs Democrat
Rep. Lori Garcia Sander, an Eaton Republican

The event was moderated by Chalkbeat reporter Jason Gonzales and Efren Garcia, a first-generation doctoral student at the Colorado School of Public Health who is studying environmental-occupational health. He is active with Young Invincibles, an organization that amplifies the voices of young adults, and works as a policy analyst at the Bell Policy Center.

Here are several excerpts from the discussion, which have been edited for length and clarity.

A Board of Cooperative Education Services, or BOCES, authorized what its leaders have called Colorado’s “first public Christian school,” surprising state education officials and members of the public. Are you concerned about this development, and if so, what do you think should be done about it?

Bright: It’s interesting when folks … are trying to test that line and see where Colorado really sits with regard to its separation of church and state. I’m anxious to see how it goes. Quite honestly, I am not partial one way or the other, but I’m anxious to see what happens and what Colorado thinks.

Lukens: I was a social studies teacher. I have taught AP Government. I know that our country was founded on the separation of church and state, and public schools are funded by taxpayers. And when we are a government entity, it is important that we have separation of church and state … So I will certainly be tracking this situation.

Polis has said Colorado will opt into a new federal tax credit scholarship program, which would provide tax credits for donations supporting private school students. Do you support this decision, and do you believe the legislature should have a role in approving or shaping how this program is implemented in Colorado?

Marchman: I’ve understood that the governor is saying, “Hey, if there’s money on the table for Colorado, let’s bring it.” But we have seen time and again, when states try to implement vouchers, they are not successful. They end up not helping any of our students or any of our staff. I don’t support it. One thing I’ve been doing is talking to the gubernatorial candidates to see where they stand on this, because ultimately it will be their decision.

Garcia Sander: I am a supporter of school choice. We have declining birth rates. We are more at risk of regular public schools closing. Parents are also more savvy consumers, and they’re shopping, and they want the best education for their kids. I think a lot of people would love to see more options on where they can direct their tax dollars. There’s lots of different tax credits that we offer, and this is just another way to offer parents choice.

Federal student protections are shifting and the Office for Civil Rights is facing a significant backlog of discrimination complaints. Should lawmakers create more options for families to report issues of discrimination they’re facing in K-12 and higher education settings?

Martinez: There are legislators that are actively working to codify protections into state law, so that families and students have a clear state-level avenue for relief in the absence of reliable federal pathways. Colorado already has a strong foundation. It’s our responsibility as the state, as state lawmakers, to pick up where the federal government has left off. We expect to introduce a bill this year that does exactly that and protects Coloradans.

The Colorado Child Care Assistance Program, or CCCAP, is a subsidy that helps low-income Colorado parents pay for child care. In many Colorado counties, there are waitlists or freezes in place, and thousands of families are waiting to receive these subsidies. At the same time, the Trump administration has put a freeze on federal funding that supports this program. How will you address this?

Bright: I own rural childcare centers, and our CCCAP families rely on our services for a safe place for them to place their kids while they’re going to work.

I convened a meeting earlier this week with legislators, the Department of Early Childhood, the governor’s office, and many counties to try to solve this very thing. We came up with 12 different options. Some of them are more or less likely to happen, but we’re definitely going to walk down that path and try to get some of these freezes unthawed.

I can tell you that I have looked at this firsthand, and I believe the State of Colorado, the Department of Early Childhood, has done an over the top great job of making sure that there isn’t fraud in our system. I can tell you, from the provider perspective, we have to go through so many checks to make sure that our folks are legitimate, that they’re real, and that they have all the documentation that they need.

So it’s just a matter of laying that out and showing that we are completely compliant.

Colorado has seen more school violence, including a school shooting at Evergreen High School, where the SRO was called off campus before the shooting. What would further legislative action or solutions look like, if any?

Garcia Sander: We’ve got a lot of rural schools that are sitting ducks, and we need to make sure that the staff there have the tools that they need and the training that they need to keep their students safe. Not everybody’s in a metro area where there might be a law enforcement officer down the city street. I think we need to look at lots of different answers that work best for communities.

Join Chalkbeat Colorado for our annual education-focused legislative preview

2026-01-06T23:45:48+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

How will another year of Colorado budget shortfalls affect education spending? What actions will lawmakers take in response to Trump administration policies? And how will state lawmakers react to the creation of a public religious school?

We will focus on these issues and more during our annual discussion of key education topics likely to surface during the upcoming Colorado legislative session.

You can join Chalkbeat Colorado’s 2026 Legislative Preview virtually on Zoom from noon to 1:30 p.m. MT on Thursday. To register, visit our Eventbrite page. This is a ticketed event with a suggested donation of $25.

Last year’s conversation with lawmakers focused on the state’s budget challenges and the impact of the Trump administration on Colorado schools, as well as how to keep educators in the teaching profession.

This year, we also expect to ask lawmakers about early education, workforce development, and school safety issues. We will be joined by:

Sen. Janice Marchman, a Loveland Democrat
Sen. Scott Bright, a Platteville Republican
Rep. Meghan Lukens, a Steamboat Springs Democrat
Rep. Matthew Martinez, a Monte Vista Democrat
Rep. Lori Garcia Sander, an Eaton Republican

The event is sponsored by the Colorado Education Association and co-moderated by Young Invincibles.

While this is a ticketed event, we don’t want price to be a barrier. You can give just $1. Or if you are able, you can donate more than the suggested amount to support our work. Chalkbeat Colorado is a nonprofit organization, and we rely on public support to provide essential and independent education coverage.

7 Colorado education issues we’re watching in 2026

2025-12-22T22:16:11+00:00

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How will Colorado lawmakers prioritize education during another tough budget year? What’s the fate of the state’s first “public Christian school?” And what will new cellphone policies look like in districts statewide?

These are just a few of the Colorado education issues that we’ll be watching in the new year. Find out below about these issues and others worth watching in 2026.

Colorado’s budget woes

Colorado lawmakers face another budget shortfall in the 2026-27 fiscal year, possibly upwards of $850 million. This comes a year after lawmakers wrangled a $1 billion spending deficit in the 2025-26 budget.

The good news: Unlike last year, Gov. Jared Polis has proposed fulfilling K-12 funding promises by fully funding schools and sticking with a plan to phase-in a new funding formula. The bad news: There might be little else available for other K-12 and higher education expenses.

With the budget at the forefront, we’ll also be watching how Polis’ budget sets up arguments on how to balance Medicaid expenses with future education funding.

More Colorado student population declines

Birth rates have been on the decline since 2008, and student enrollment fell slightly in Colorado schools in the last year.

This is an issue school districts are already trying to address, with some closing or merging schools in response.

But birth rates won’t be the only driving factor in statewide enrollment changes. Federal immigration crackdowns will also likely play a role.

Recently, Denver Public Schools announced a 1,200 student population decline this year after a pronounced drop in the number of immigrant students enrolling in the district.

We’ll also be watching how colleges and universities respond to student population declines.

Higher education institutions here and nationwide are bracing for an “enrollment cliff,” or fewer high school-age students graduating due to those declining birth rates. These enrollment declines are expected to begin next year.

Deciding the fate of Colorado’s first “public Christian school”

In 2026, Colorado education officials could start the lengthy process of determining whether a Pueblo County school billed by its authorizer as the state’s first “public Christian school” is eligible for public funding.

The Colorado Department of Education warned in October that it could withhold funding from the school, Riverstone Academy, because Colorado’s Constitution bans religious public schools. But the audit process that would lead to a final decision won’t start until January and likely wouldn’t conclude till early 2027, state officials said this month.

Riverstone, which launched quietly in August with about 30 students, was authorized by a public education cooperative called Education reEnvisioned BOCES and was initially funded by a private loan. This winter, the school could receive some state funding while the audit process unfolds. If the state eventually rules that the school doesn’t qualify for public dollars, the money would have to be returned, state officials said.

Riverstone, which describes itself as offering a Christian foundation and using a Christian curriculum, was created to spur a lawsuit over the question of whether public money can fund religious schools, emails obtained by Chalkbeat suggest. The U.S. Supreme Court deadlocked on the issue in April.

Supreme Court could weigh in on preschool lawsuit

The U.S. Supreme Court will likely decide in early 2026 whether to hear a Colorado case that pits religious liberty against LGBTQ rights.

The Denver-area Catholic preschools at the center of the case have argued that if they join Colorado’s state-funded preschool program, they should be allowed to keep out LGBTQ children or children with LGBTQ parents. The state rejected this argument and so have two lower courts.

If the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case, it could answer a key question that’s also percolating through lower courts in other parts of the country: Can religious schools that accept public money get exemptions from non-discrimination rules?

If the high court declines to hear the case, it would signal that states can require schools to comply with discrimination protections for LGBTQ people if they want to join state-funded education programs.

A new higher education and workforce department

In December, Polis announced a plan to shut down the Colorado Department of Higher Education in its current form and create a brand new department.

This proposed Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development would create one unified agency that houses programs such as higher education, adult education, apprenticeships, and the state workforce development program.

Ahead of the announcement, the Department of Higher Education’s executive director said she would be leaving to take another job for personal reasons. Polis has since appointed JB Holston as executive director to help lead the department’s transition.

The new department is far from a done deal. Lawmakers will need to file legislation next year to merge these state functions. And Polis has said the final say will rest with a new governor in 2027 after Polis finishes his second term in 2026.

Elizabeth book removal lawsuit could be decided

A jury could decide in 2026 whether the school board in a small conservative-leaning Colorado community wrongly removed 19 titles from school libraries in 2024 because of content board members deemed inappropriate, overly graphic, and in some cases “disgusting.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado sued the 2,700-student Elizabeth School District over the book removals in Dec. 2024 on behalf of two district students, a chapter of the NAACP, and an authors group. The lawsuit argues that the book removals violate federal and state free speech protections. No trial date has been set yet.

The books at issue in the case are primarily by or about LGBTQ people, people of color, or both. They include “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hossein, "The Hate U Give,” by Angie Thomas, and “It’s Your World — If You Don’t Like It, Change It” by Mikki Halpin.

The ACLU lawsuit is one of two related to the 19 library books. In November, a former middle school dean sued the district, alleging she was fired shortly after objecting to the removal of the books.

New cellphone policies

Colorado lawmakers passed House Bill 1135 during the 2025 legislative session to curb cellphone use in schools.

The law requires districts to adopt policies to limit smartphone and smartwatch use in classrooms. The law also requires school boards to spell out exceptions, such as for health emergencies or to report a safety concern.

Lawmakers passed the bill to help address what experts have called a mental health crisis and to promote better learning in the classroom.

While lawmakers passed the bill this past spring, the bill won’t take effect until July 1, 2026. At that time, every school district in the state will need to adopt a policy.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Beyond High School: The end of SAVE

2025-12-19T17:41:28+00:00

Beyond High School is our free monthly newsletter covering higher education policy and practices in Colorado. Sign up to get it delivered to your inbox early.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Education reached a proposed settlement in a lawsuit brought by Republican state attorneys general to end the Saving on a Valuable Education student loan repayment plan.

The plan, better known as SAVE, offered a flexible, income-driven repayment plan and quicker loan forgiveness. Some of the about 7.6 million borrowers enrolled paid as little as $0 a month.

Republican state attorneys general argued that the plan would saddle taxpayers with borrowers’ obligations. The federal government backs student loans with the expectation that it will recoup a portion of the money plus interest from borrowers. The Trump administration has also repeatedly questioned the SAVE plan’s legality.

As part of the settlement, the Trump administration said it will stop enrolling new borrowers in the plan, deny any pending applications, and move all SAVE borrowers into different repayment plans.

For those borrowers, this means the Education Department will begin sending notifications in the coming weeks. Officials also said borrowers will have a limited time to choose a new repayment plan.

Those options include fixed repayment plans that calculate how much a borrower owes, their interest rate, and repayment timeline, as well as income-based repayment plans that calculate how much borrowers earn and can afford to pay each month.

The settlement is just one of several steps the Trump administration and Congress have taken to reshape federal student loan programs. Before the settlement, lawmakers planned to phase out the SAVE plan.

Other changes include the creation of the new Repayment Assistance Plan, or RAP, which would extend the timeline to get student loan forgiveness up to 30 years. National advocacy groups have panned the plan as potentially more expensive for some borrowers.

If you have a question, comment, or tip, reach me at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.

Higher ed stories from Chalkbeat

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis wants merger of higher education and labor departments — Polis backed a merger of certain functions from seven different state agencies to form a new Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development.

Colorado faculty councils call on university leaders to oppose Trump on higher education — Colorado university and college faculty bodies have joined others nationwide to push Colorado university leaders to defend against the Trump administration.

Colorado higher ed department chief to leave post in January — Colorado Department of Higher Education Executive Director Angie Paccione said she will leave for the private sector due to personal reasons.

Gov. Polis selects new leader of Colorado’s higher education department — JB Holston will shadow Paccione for a month before taking over in January.

Recent high school graduates and older students are enrolling at Colorado’s community colleges at higher rates — This year, the Colorado Community College System reported an enrollment of more than 94,000 students.

Donations help Colorado rural colleges expand student access to work-based learning — Donations are fueling a new initiative that will seek to expand learning opportunities in rural communities that connect to the workforce.

What we’re reading

Despite funding woes, Colorado’s first Latina chancellor sees bright future for community colleges Colorado Sun

‘The raw voices of the people’: CNCC launches community-driven strategic planning effort to align college’s future with Moffat County needs Craig Press

Here’s how much more income a college degree gets you in Colorado Fort Collins Coloradoan

Sole finalist for new president named for Colorado State University Pueblo Colorado Public Radio

“Buckle up”: Trump official pledges to fix accreditation Inside Higher Ed

Gov. Jared Polis selects new leader of Colorado’s higher education department

2025-12-16T00:30:49+00:00

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Colorado entrepreneur and consultant JB Holston will take over as the state higher education department’s new executive director starting in January, according to a Monday announcement from Gov. Jared Polis’ office.

Holston, who joined the Colorado Department of Higher Education on Monday, will shadow exiting Executive Director Angie Paccione until Jan. 9, when he will assume leadership of a department that’s expected to undergo plenty of change in the next year.

JB Holston will shadow the Colorado Department of Higher Education's current executive director before assuming the role in January.

Last week, Polis said he wants to end Colorado’s higher education department in its current form and create a new agency that would merge the functions of the state’s higher education, labor, and other departments in a bid to strengthen training for jobs.

In an interview Monday, Holston said he was a senior advisor on a report that recommended the creation of the Colorado Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development.

The higher education department supports students and creates statewide policy. It doesn’t have a governing role over the state’s colleges and universities. The department collects data and oversees programs that support the workforce, decrease student debt, and help more Coloradans get a college certificate, credential, or degree.

Paccione announced her resignation at the beginning of December to enter the private sector for personal reasons.

Polis’ second term will end in 2026, and the next governor will choose to keep or hire new department leaders. Holston said he will focus on continuing the work the higher education department performs and its transition, and not on who the new governor will keep in his cabinet.

“We really want to move this along so that it’s extremely easy for the next governor to accept and accelerate,” Holston said. “The next governor will decide whom he or she wants doing what, and we’re trying to get this work done really quite independent of that particular aspect.”

Polis has said lawmakers will need to file legislation to create the new department and the process will finish with the next governor in 2027.

Holston received a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from Stanford University. His resume includes leadership roles at media companies NBCUniversal and Ziff Davis, Inc. Holston was the dean of the University of Denver’s School of Engineering and Computer Science for five years.

He has spent the last several years working as a consultant advising civic organizations, higher education institutions, governments, and industries on strategy and workforce and economic development efforts.

Holston has also helped co-found numerous civic initiatives, including the Colorado Media Project, which is a Chalkbeat funder. See our funders here, and read our ethics policy here.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis wants merger of higher education and labor departments

2025-12-10T21:41:43+00:00

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A plan from Colorado’s governor would end Colorado’s higher education department in its current form and create a new agency that would merge the functions of the state’s higher education, labor, and other departments in a bid to strengthen workforce development.

A report commissioned by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis and released Wednesday recommends that Colorado create a new Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development. The department would take over certain programs and responsibilities from seven different state departments with the goal to boost economic development and education beyond high school.

The merger is similar to what several Republican governors have done in their states. The new department would include the higher education department, the state’s workforce development council, the state apprenticeship agency, and adult education. At the federal level, President Donald Trump has moved some functions of the U.S. Department of Education dealing with career and technical education and K-12 to the U.S. Department of Labor.

The announcement, marked by a press event at the Colorado State University Spur, comes a week after Colorado Department of Higher Education Executive Director Angie Paccione said she was leaving her post after seven years. Paccione, who attended the event, said family matters contributed to her decision to leave the position in January.

Polis, whose term as governor will end next year, said he wants lawmakers to file a bill in the upcoming legislative session to begin a process that he said will likely finish with the state’s next governor in 2027. Lawmakers will need to approve moving programs under the consolidated department’s purview.

“This kind of consolidation drives better efficiency, better results, and is more consumer friendly to learners,” Polis said Wednesday.

Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat, said lawmakers will focus on how to build this new department.

“We want to make sure the folks that are the experts in running these programs and services, and certainly the leaders of these departments, have an opportunity to weigh in and how we move different pieces to a brand new department,” McCluskie said.

Polis signed an executive order in May tasking various state agencies, including the higher education, education, labor, and economic development departments, with producing the report that analyzes the current system of talent development and to find ways to improve Coloradans’ access to employment, education, and training opportunities.

Polis has pushed to improve workforce education years, and state lawmakers have commissioned other reports that say the state can do more to help residents get an education and then into the workforce.

Polis said the proposal crosses political boundaries and would help propel Colorado to the top in terms of economic competitiveness.

“I think that it’s an idea that good governors from either side of the aisle can get behind working with their legislature,” he said. “It’s fundamentally about streamlining. It’s about more efficiency. It’s about driving better results for learners.”

Several other states have taken similar approaches.

For example, South Carolina passed a state law in 2023 to develop a statewide plan to get industry and education partners working under one set of standards to improve the educational and workforce connections in the state.

And Virginia created an Office of Education Economics in 2021 that seeks to use data to help improve educational programming, policy, and workforce partnerships.

However, the Colorado report’s recommendations are very similar to what’s been done in Missouri, which began to merge its higher education and workforce development offices in 2018 into a Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development.

The Missouri department’s Commissioner Bennett Boggs said the change helped employers and colleges and universities work together in a more comprehensive way. But it also came with challenges, he said. State leaders have needed to think through how to adjust traditional structures, like semester schedules, to be more flexible to employers’ demands, he said.

“It’s a healthier conversation in terms of economic development, workforce development, and helping Missourians,” said Boggs, who previously worked as the higher education department’s deputy executive director in Colorado. “Our mission is putting Missourians on a pathway to learn, work, and prosper.”

The report Polis released Wednesday says too few Coloradans are getting the education they need to get higher-paying jobs.

Currently, only half of all Colorado high school graduates make it to college, the report says. Even fewer graduate college or get the training they need for higher skilled jobs. Older adults also have needed more help navigating training or retraining options.

The report says automation and artificial intelligence has driven the need for employees to gain new skills, and the state’s workforce has started to age. These realities mean Colorado will need even more trained workers to fill key jobs. Over 73% of jobs require education after high school, and the report says Colorado is highly educated due to in-migration, but “can no longer rely on importing talent from other states.”

The report says Colorado’s education and workforce system lacks coordination, shared data, and clear accountability. State agencies also have varying grants and inconsistent policies and procedures, the report says, which can create inefficiencies and confusion for administrators.

Educational options beyond just a high school diploma are plentiful across the state, the report says. Coloradans can choose between over 300 apprenticeships and 4,500 training programs, as well as over 10,000 degree options.

However, residents have difficulty understanding which programs might fit their goals because of the complexity of the system. Business leaders run into similar issues when trying to navigate the system, the report says.

Polis said the confusing system was created over numerous years as the result of “inertia” as economic development offices, state agencies, universities, and colleges have reacted to workforce trends. The new department would unify programs to also make the system easier for residents to understand, he said.

Correction: Dec. 10, 2025: Colorado’s higher education department will end in its current form, not close.

Polis all in on Trump’s tax-credit scholarship while other Dem governors wait and see

2025-12-06T01:55:30+00:00

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Gov. Jared Polis plans to opt Colorado into a federal tax-credit scholarship program, opening the door to private school choice in a Democratic state where lawmakers and voters have rejected previous proposals.

Conservatives, children’s advocates, and supporters of school choice praised the decision for its possibility to raise money for all students’ education. Meanwhile, a coalition of public school advocates sent a letter to Polis this week asking him to reconsider.

The voucher-like program, part of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill, has the potential to generate billions of dollars for private school tuition and other educational expenses, such as tutoring, but governors have to decide whether to participate.

Polis appears to be the second Democratic governor to announce his intention to join. North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein did so in August under pressure from state Republican lawmakers who have dramatically expanded the state’s voucher system. Polis also is the second governor to opt in from a state where voters rejected a school choice measure at the ballot. Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican, signed an order in September declaring that his state would participate, setting the stage for Nebraska’s first private school choice program after voters there overturned voucher legislation in 2024.

School choice supporters had hoped the federal program would expand educational opportunities in states where politics made it difficult or impossible to pass voucher legislation. Polis, meanwhile, said he saw other potential benefits.

Polis spokesperson Shelby Wieman said in a statement Friday that the governor would not have voted for the budget bill, but he is not interested in leaving hundreds of millions in federal money on the table that could provide additional funding for after-school programming, summer school, scholarships, and academic tutoring.

“This tax credit creates an immense opportunity for Coloradans to support students in our state, but only if we opt in,” she said. “He welcomes the opportunity to work with school districts and other education stakeholders to help ensure this credit can benefit the greatest number of students across our state with evidence-based programs that supplement school days. He encourages the administration to ensure these tax credits lead to improved student outcomes.”

The tax-credit program allows taxpayers to reduce their tax liability if they donate to eligible scholarship-granting organizations, which then pay for students’ educational expenses.

The law allows donations to benefit public and private school students alike, but how feasible it might be to harness donations for public school students will depend in part on rules that the Treasury Department has yet to issue.

The Colorado Sun first reported that Polis plans to opt Colorado into the program. He expressed openness to the idea last summer and supported a version of a voucher plan earlier in his career. Polis said in a statement Friday that he doesn’t believe vouchers are a good use of public funds and that this tax credit is not a voucher.

States officially opt in by presenting a list of eligible scholarship-granting organizations to the Treasury Department, a step that must wait until rules are finalized next year.

Polis’ decision doesn’t necessarily mean Colorado will participate in the tax-credit program over the long term. Polis is term-limited, and the winner of the governor’s race next year could make a different decision.

Supporters of Polis’ decision agreed that the tax credits present an opportunity for the state to raise millions for students, including to support them in out-of-school opportunities and to pay for transportation and school supplies. Advocates say the tax-credit scholarship program helps students in underperforming schools attend other school options.

Tony Lewis, executive director of the Donnell-Kay Foundation, which works on education policy, said he hopes the tax credit rules allow scholarship-granting organizations the ability to pay for a wide range of activities, such as sports, after-school programs, theater classes, and summer camps. (The Donnell-Kay Foundation also has provided funding to Chalkbeat. Read more about our supporters and our ethics policy here.)

“If we pass up this opportunity to opt in now, we close any possibility of doing good work for public school kids,” he said. “Why not keep your options open?”

The Colorado Children’s Campaign, an advocacy organization, also expressed optimism about the potential to benefit public school students.

And Ready Colorado Executive Director Brenda Dickhoner said the decision means more opportunities for kids, especially those wanting to participate in enrichment programs. The conservative organization focuses on school choice and education reform.

“It’s a way for us to solve this problem of closing this opportunity gap, and making it more equitable for kids to access after school enrichment, whether it’s band or sports or any type of tutoring,” she said in an interview.

The program doesn’t require state investment. Instead, it allows states to decide whether taxpayers can donate funds to scholarship-granting organizations and receive a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit. Individual taxpayers can claim a credit of up to $1,700 starting in 2027.

Those organizations would give the money to parents to pay for education expenses, such as a students’ private school tuition, books, transportation, and uniforms. Families earning up to 300% of area median income would qualify. That threshold includes well-off families in expensive urban areas but might exclude middle-class families in some rural communities.

Colorado voters in 2024 rejected Amendment 80, which would have enshrined the right to school choice in the state’s Constitution. In 2021, they rejected a measure that would have used marijuana tax dollars to support after-school programs and tutoring.

Polis reiterated his decision to opt in despite pleas from a coalition led by Great Education Colorado that delivered a letter to Polis on Wednesday saying the state should not participate.

The letter said the state should focus on providing more resources to schools and respect voters’ wishes to keep vouchers out of the state.

The group added that the state can and must do better when it comes to public education. “But publicly funded school vouchers are not the way to achieve this,” the letter says.

The letter says studies have shown vouchers provide mixed results in improving student achievement. It also says the program lacks public accountability and allows discrimination against children with disabilities or who identify as LGBTQ+.

“Unlike the private or religious schools that vouchers support, our public schools are obligated to teach all students, holding fast to the American ideal of public education as a springboard to success and as necessary to a well-functioning democracy,” the letter says.

The list of organizations calling on Polis to reject the plan include the Colorado Education Association, Colorado Fiscal Institute, Colorado PTA, Movimiento Poder, and The Bell Policy Center.

Beyond High School: The West’s FAFSA dilemma

2025-12-04T18:14:27+00:00

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If you look at the bottom 10 states in the country with the lowest number of high school seniors completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, nine are in western states. In the West, only California ranks within the top 25 states.

National College Attainment Network’s Bill DeBaun, the organization’s senior director of data and strategic initiatives, said the West’s FAFSA completion dilemma has been ongoing for years and on his mind for just as long. He likes to say “once you see the problem, you can’t unsee it.”

“Politically, geographically, the western states are not monolithic,” DeBaun said. “And yet they are getting kind of monolithic FAFSA completion outcomes, right?”

DeBaun’s organization aims to influence systems, practices, and policies to help increase college access and graduation rates across the country. The nonprofit annually displays FAFSA completion rates and where states rank. This year’s results aren’t available yet.

DeBaun said he doesn’t have answers as to why this has continued to happen. These states, which include Colorado, Wyoming, and Washington, are more than 10 points behind the national average of 61% of high school seniors completing the FAFSA.

Washington has a robust set of policies that aim to help students finish the FAFSA, DeBaun said. So the problem isn’t necessarily the practices that states have in place, he said.

DeBaun does have a few theories, including college-going attitudes and perceptions in rural areas. The sheer size of Western states might also be an issue, he said. Students in western states don’t have the same proximity to colleges as those on the East Coast, DeBaun said.

“We know that students tend to matriculate to a college within 50 miles of home,” he said. “If you don’t have an institution within 50 miles of home, is it out of sight and out of mind?”

Let us know what you think. What are your theories about what’s going on with FAFSA in western states? Reach me at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.

Higher ed stories from Chalkbeat

Colorado counselors set to lose valuable FAFSA student data after state budget cuts — State budget cuts are the reason high school counselors won’t have access to a tool that helped them see which students were running into issues filling out the form.

As University of Colorado students plan TEDx event, political violence weighs on their decisions — The TEDxCU student club wanted to invite a speaker who might be seen as controversial. They changed plans after the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Gov. Jared Polis’ budget proposal keeps K-12 funding promises, allows for college tuition increases — Polis wants to include $14.2 million in the budget for colleges and universities to support salary increases and help keep in-state tuition increases equal to inflation.

What we’re reading

How Colorado’s public colleges are being hobbled by a long-ago tax revolt The Chronicle of Higher Education

Children of Colorado’s farmworker families lose critical college support program Colorado Public Radio

University of Colorado professor works with Northern Arapaho to revitalize and teach the language CBS Colorado

Community colleges face new challenges as Trump battles with higher education PBS News Hour

Community College leaders ask Carnegie to pull its new classification Inside Higher Ed

Colorado higher ed department chief to leave post in January

2025-12-03T00:36:59+00:00

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Colorado higher ed chief Angie Paccione will step down Jan. 9 to return to the private sector as a corporate leadership trainer.

Paccione has led the Colorado Department of Higher Education as its executive director since 2019, when Gov. Jared Polis took office. Colorado’s higher education department provides support to campuses and develops statewide policies.

Paccione departs as the second-longest-serving executive director in the department’s history, according to a Tuesday news release from the governor’s office.

“It’s been an honor and delight to do this work,” said Paccione in an interview after the announcement. “I really hope people have felt seen and heard and supported.”

Paccione said she’s contemplated next steps since her mother died earlier this year. She will leave after the department’s annual presentation to the Joint Budget Committee, a six-member group of lawmakers that helps set the budget.

The Polis administration plans to select a successor before she leaves, the news release said.

“Angie’s hard work and dedication has created a foundation that we will continue building on for learners and workers at all levels,” Polis said.

Paccione said she’s most proud of policies that help students who were in foster care and experiencing homelessness get to college. She tried to meet monthly with higher education leaders and held meetings with private institutions to involve them more in statewide policy, she said.

She helped the state and higher education navigate pandemic disruptions and oversaw the doling out of recovery dollars that helped fuel the creation of programs like Colorado Re-Engaged, which awards certain students who dropped out of a four-year institution an associate degree.

Paccione received her doctorate in education and human resource studies from Colorado State University. She has often discussed her higher education experience as the first in her family to graduate college. She attended undergraduate at Stanford University as one of the first women on a full-ride athletic scholarship.

Recent high school graduates and older students are enrolling at Colorado’s community colleges at higher rates

2025-11-26T16:00:00+00:00

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Colorado’s community college total enrollment ticked up this year by about 6.3% over last fall, continuing a state and national trend of two-year public colleges recording strong enrollment gains since pandemic lows.

This year, the Colorado Community College System reported a total enrollment of 94,303 students, up 5,555 students over last fall. About 24,000 students are enrolled full-time, defined as a student taking at least 12 credit hours.

While the state’s community college rebound has been marked by more high school students taking college-level courses, this fall’s increases show gains with older students and recent high school grads. Those students have been less likely to enroll in community college since the pandemic.

The bulk of Colorado community college enrollment growth still continues to be concentrated among students under the age of 17 who attend high school and dual enroll in college-level courses. The state’s community colleges added another 3,400 students 17 and under this fall, up to 40,321 students.

Community colleges also added 2,214 more students aged 18 to 49. Students 50 and older dipped slightly, by 31 students. The changes bring the total enrollment of students 18 and older to 53,978.

Among all students, campuses enrolled 1,658 more students who are the first in their family to attend college, or an increase of 4.72% over last year’s 38,833 students. First-time college student enrollment also grew by 701 students, up to 11,924.

Of the state’s 13 community colleges, only Colorado Northwestern Community College and Trinidad State Community College reported enrollment decreases.

Community colleges were some of the hardest hit by enrollment dips following COVID shutdowns, and national numbers show two-year college enrollment hasn’t fully bounced back.

However, Colorado’s two-year colleges have fared much better than some in other states.

Sarah Heath, Colorado Community College System vice chancellor for academic and student affairs, says the state’s two-year public college system is focusing more on connecting students to the workforce, and that has led to an increase in older students.

Shorter-term industry credentials and programs that connect to employability have taken off in recent years.

“What I’ve seen is that the more aligned industry and workforce-driven things are what’s growing in a lot of community college spaces here,” Heath said.

Colleges have worked to create workforce opportunities while students are enrolled, including apprenticeship and internship programs. Colorado higher education leaders want to increase work-based learning opportunities, especially in rural areas.

More colleges also want employers to help connect programs to jobs, Heath said. And the state increased marketing toward students who want to get a short-term certificate or credential, she said.

Donations help Colorado rural colleges expand student access to work-based learning

2025-11-21T23:23:39+00:00

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Thanks to $5.6 million in donations, Colorado will launch a new initiative to help rural college students get an education that connects to the workforce, according to a Friday news release.

State officials will use the money to create a statewide consortium focused on expanding rural work-based learning opportunities, such as internships, apprenticeships, clinical experiences, or project-based learning. The state will also use the money to help cover credit-bearing work experiences and address disparities in internship access. Additionally, the state plans to measure the impact of this type of education.

Lawmakers approved the three-year pilot program within House Bill 1186 during this year’s legislative session to help rural colleges, but did not provide state funding. Instead, lawmakers asked state officials to collect at least $2 million in grants, gifts, or donations. The move helped make the bill more palatable in a year when lawmakers needed to wrangle a $1.2 billion budget shortfall.

“This significant investment represents a major step forward in ensuring that every Colorado student has access to quality educational opportunities,” said Gov. Jared Polis in a Friday news release. “This legislation recognizes that our rural communities and the institutions that serve them are vital to Colorado’s future, and this funding helps us turn that vision into reality.”

Colorado Department of Higher Education Executive Director Angie Paccione said during legislative testimony in March that the bill would ensure more rural students can apply their college education to the real-world workforce. About 76% of degree programs in the state require some form of work-based learning opportunity, she said.

Yet there’s a larger gap in the work-based learning opportunities rural colleges can offer, said bill sponsor state Rep. Matthew Martinez, a Democrat who represents rural Monte Vista and previously worked in higher education.

“I want to narrow the gap between a student getting to graduation and getting in the job field,” he said in March.

Democratic state Rep. Meghan Lukens, Republican state Sen. Janice Rich, and Democratic Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet also sponsored the bill.

The state received $5.5 million over three years from Ascendium Education Group, a nonprofit whose mission includes helping students from low-income backgrounds connect to education and career training. Nonprofit Strada Education Foundation, which focuses on making it easier for students to get from college to a career, also donated $100,000.

The grants will be managed by the higher education department’s Office of Educational Equity, Workforce, and Social Mobility, according to the news release.

“This funding will support talented students statewide in pursuing their education and career goals side by side — because they shouldn’t have to choose one over the other,” said Gillian McKnight-Tutein, the higher education department’s chief educational impact officer, in the release.

Colorado faculty councils call on university leaders to oppose Trump on higher education

2025-11-21T02:19:37+00:00

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A growing number of Colorado university faculty bodies have adopted resolutions asking school leaders to consider pooling resources to oppose the Trump administration’s unprecedented push to reshape colleges nationwide.

On Thursday, the University of Colorado System Faculty Council became the latest in Colorado to pass such a resolution, known as a “mutual academic defense compact.” Sixty-one percent of faculty voted in favor.

The defense compacts, which are also being considered by other faculty assemblies nationally and have been modified slightly by each school, urge Colorado university leaders to work together to defend against what they say are Trump administration attacks on academic freedom, free speech, independent governance, and research in higher education. Any compact would likely need to be approved by university leaders and boards.

American Association of University Professors Colorado Conference co-president Aaron Schneider said although the resolutions are mostly symbolic, they bring together faculty voices to hopefully “provide some backbone to our administrations.”

“It’s a call for solidarity,” he said. “It’s based on the idea that universities understand each other, that we share a mission of knowledge, of teaching, of creating an autonomous civic space for debate and democracy, and that that needs to be preserved.”

In response to the Trump administration’s actions, some Colorado university leaders have changed website wording, revised free speech policies, and dismantled campus initiatives, such as diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

Universities have lost research grants under administration changes. The Trump administration also asked universities to sign a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” that would commit schools to align with its agenda. Trump’s compact outlines provisions schools must agree to, including changes to campus free speech policies, transgender student and athlete policies, and admissions requirements.

University of Colorado System President Todd Saliman said in a Thursday statement after the faculty passed the resolution that university leadership at every level are committed to academic freedom as a foundational tenets.

A university spokesperson said CU is already part of a collective of 23 public institutions in Colorado who are represented by the Colorado Attorney General Office. CU provides funding as part of the collaboration.

“To protect academic freedom and our ability to carry out our mission, we have been laser focused on engaging in ways that are the most effective in advancing our mission,” Saliman said. “That emphasis will continue.”

The defense compact resolutions originated in March at New Jersey’s Rutgers University, where faculty encouraged Big Ten Conference school leaders to present a united front against the Trump administration.

Along with the CU System, faculty bodies approving such a resolution or something similar include Fort Lewis College; Colorado State University Fort Collins; the University of Denver; Western Colorado University; and the University of Colorado Boulder, Schneider said.

Faculty at Front Range Community College, the University of Northern Colorado, and the University of Colorado Colorado Springs also could consider a resolution, he said.

Colorado State University professor and faculty council member Mary Van Buren, whose council was one of the first to pass the resolution in May, said she understands school leaders are trying to preserve the institution amid threats against federal financial support.

“But where do you draw the line if you’re constantly being encroached on?” Van Buren said. “If you’re constantly making small capitulations to the administration, at what point are you just hollowing out the very core of university values?”

A Western Colorado spokesperson said the school “will not waver in upholding our commitment to academic freedom, integrity of research, and freedom of inquiry, with or without a declared compact.” A University of Denver spokesperson said “the administration is reviewing the resolution and determining the appropriate next steps.” Fort Lewis and CSU Fort Collins representatives had not issued a statement by deadline Thursday.

Faculty want universities to ‘fight against’ Trump policies

University of Colorado Boulder education school professor Deb Palmer, a Boulder Faculty Assembly member and Boulder AAUP co-president, said it’s important that university presidents know how faculty members feel about changes they’ve seen on campus in reaction to the Trump administration’s guidelines. Some are small, like a change to CU Boulder signage from all-gender restrooms to just toilets, she said.

“The main message here is that faculty would like to see the universities fight against the White House’s push to destroy our institutions, rather than just negotiate with the attackers,” she said.

Other changes have been much bigger, such as at the University of Denver. University officials ended policies aimed at helping students of color, as well as LGBTQ and low-income students, after a U.S. Department of Justice memo in July. University leaders feared that the private school could lose federal funding.

“I hope it [the resolution] communicates our deep concern for and resistance to federal interference with the autonomy of higher education institutions, and our continued investment in effective support for all students, staff, and faculty, particularly those who are most impacted by the current federal and sociopolitical landscape” said psychology professor Sarah Enos Watamura, DU’s Faculty Senate president.

These resolutions ask school leaders to go further than past statements and actions. Faculty have also said they want school leaders to not rely solely on the state Attorney General Phil Weiser to defend Colorado higher education.

In April, several Colorado school leaders signed on to an American Association of Colleges & Universities letter calling for constructive engagement with the administration. The AAC&U is a membership organization dedicated to advancing the democratic purposes of higher education.

The letter — which gained almost 500 school leaders’ signatures — said administrators are open to constructive reform from the administration, but “must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses.”

School leaders that signed the letter include officials at DU, MSU Denver, CSU Fort Collins, and Colorado College.

A similar group of Colorado school leaders also signed onto an AAC&U letter against the Trump compact. The letter said the Trump administration’s compact represents coercion, not constructive engagement.

Van Buren said she’s seen school leadership be more receptive to the concerns of students and faculty since the faculty passed the defense compact in May. However, students and faculty have still needed to resist changes enacted by leaders in response to Trump, she said.

In August, CSU leaders revised free speech policies on campus and limited chalking, or writing messages in chalk on sidewalks. After student and faculty pushback, the administration rescinded the policy revisions, she said.

“I think that faculty councils, AAUP chapters, and student organizations across the state are going to continue to act in concert to communicate and oppose these changes,” Van Buren said. “But it’s up to the [university] administrations to really make this effective.”

Colorado counselors set to lose valuable FAFSA student data after state budget cuts

2025-11-18T19:46:57+00:00

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At a time when Colorado lawmakers want to boost the number of students filling out college financial aid forms, high school counselors are set to lose access to a state data tool that experts say is key to accomplishing that goal.

The tool shows counselors each student’s progress toward completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Counselors use it to figure out if students are running into issues during the process so they can then get those students help.

The Colorado Department of Higher Education hired a temporary, full-time coordinator to manage the tool in 2023 as part of a push to increase FAFSA outreach. But state lawmakers cut the $61,000 position this past spring due to a budget shortfall. State budget writers thought it wouldn’t be needed because there’s already federal and state support for students to fill out the revamped FAFSA.

Although the so-called Better FAFSA has improved the process after a rocky rollout, national experts say state-run data tools such as this one remain one of the more effective ways to raise FAFSA completion rates — short of mandating that high school students complete the FAFSA to graduate, a policy Colorado has not adopted.

The loss of the coordinator means the state will stop providing student-level data starting in 2026.

Gabriel Guindon, Denver Scholarship Foundation’s director of college access, said his team was shocked when they heard about the cut in September. Guindon said it will be more difficult for his organization, which focuses on supporting Denver students going to college, to pinpoint students who haven’t completed a financial aid form.

“It is the one reliable, accurate source that summarizes where all students in a school building stand in terms of financial aid completion,” he said. “It will remove any ability for us to have an accurate list.”

The FAFSA opens up the possibility of federal money and other grants and scholarships to pay for college. State lawmakers have wanted to increase FAFSA support because students who complete it are more likely to immediately enroll in college. Many of Colorado’s highest paying jobs with opportunity for growth require schooling beyond high school.

Colorado has also ranked near the bottom in FAFSA completion for years. This last year, Colorado ranked 44th in the nation in getting 2025 high school seniors to complete the FAFSA. About 49% of its seniors finished the form. Data for the 2026 school year hasn’t been released yet.

In 2022, a state working group released a report commissioned by lawmakers that outlined ideas to help move Colorado into the top 10% of FAFSA completion by 2026 or get 80% of seniors filling out the form.

The report included recommendations to increase staff to help students, improve data resources, and create a statewide FAFSA requirement. Lawmakers have provided some money for the work, and the state has added multiple positions to its outreach team.

Lawmakers also haven’t fully funded recommendations in part due to budget concerns and to give the federal government time to fix problems with the new FAFSA application, which launched in late 2023. Lawmakers have also expressed concerns that a graduation requirement would place more work on schools.

Without the data tool, Guindon said his staff at the Denver Scholarship Foundation will have to reach out directly to every student to understand their progress.

“This is probably going to quadruple the amount of time, and probably even more, that (my) team members will have to focus on reaching out to students about their financial aid progress,” said Guindon.

The Colorado Department of Higher Education asked lawmakers in its budget request to continue funding the position. Joint Budget Committee staff recommended in March its elimination because “significant federal and local systems and structures provide robust support for FAFSA application completion to both individuals, families, and schools.”

Budget lawmakers did provide permanent funding at the request of the department for a Colorado Application for State Financial Aid coordinator, which the department created at about the same time as the coordinator who managed FAFSA data.

CASFA helps determine financial need for students who can’t fill out the FAFSA, such as students without legal documentation. Budget writers included $88,000 a year for the CASFA coordinator because they determined there’s less support for these students.

Without the FAFSA coordinator, the department will only be able to show district-level FAFSA completion data through the tool.

“I don’t know if we made a strong enough case, because I was surprised that they [the Joint Budget Committee] would cut it,” Colorado Higher Education Department Executive Director Angie Paccione said. “I’ll take that. I’ll own it.”

Bill DeBaun, senior director of data and strategic initiatives with the National College Attainment Network, said he’s never heard of a state removing access to a data tool due to how important the information can be to educators.

“There’s nothing I’m aware of inherent in the new FAFSA that would obviate the need for the kinds of state to local data sharing that have been successful across the country,” he said.

In 2019, Colorado had 15 FAFSA coordinators funded by a grant who worked in regions across the state, Paccione said. Since the grant expired, the team has gotten smaller, she said.

After the most recent cut, Colorado has eight staff members who work on FAFSA outreach but that’s only a very small portion of their job, a spokesperson said. The team has fewer staff members than in smaller states like Kentucky, North Carolina, and Georgia, DeBaun said.

The data coordinator potentially had the most widespread impact, DeBaun said.

“If you told me that I could have a coordinator who was either doing statewide programming or who could focus on the data sharing,” he said, “I would want to keep that data sharing piece because that is something that potentially touches every single school and school counselor in a state.”

As University of Colorado students plan TEDx event, political violence weighs on their decisions

2025-11-13T15:00:00+00:00

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Soon after the September assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah, student leaders at the University of Colorado Boulder knew they needed to make a decision.

The student-run TEDxCU club had invited liberal political commentator Dean Withers to speak about young people, the news, and social media at its April 4, 2026 event. The 21-year-old Withers, who grew up in Grand Junction and has 4.7 million followers on TikTok, is similar to Kirk in that he hosts live debates with everyday people on the opposite end of the political spectrum. In Withers’ case, he tries to change the minds of Trump supporters, sometimes using divisive rhetoric.

The TEDx club leaders feared that after Kirk’s assassination, Withers might put their event at risk of violence. They discussed in an iMessage group chat their shock about Kirk and agreed to reevaluate inviting Withers to campus. They decided to no longer pursue the liberal commentator, who calls Trump “the orange tyrant,” and instead extend invites to other speakers.

“We just couldn’t justify it,” said senior Kalen Sieja, 21, a co-curator of the student group. “It just wasn’t worth the safety risk.”

The TEDxCU club’s decision highlights how students are trying to balance the desire to promote free speech with potential safety concerns. The recent assassination of the conservative political activist, last year’s assassination attempt of President Donald Trump when he was the Republican nominee, and a political climate defined by polarization make that job difficult and delicate.

“I feel as if we don’t have the same freedom as we could in choosing someone or creating conversations that could spark a little controversy,” said junior Lina Meddah, 21, a TEDxCU student lead. “Sparking that controversy isn’t safe anymore with what happened.”

Junior Kira Warren, 20, a co-curator of the TEDx group, said she has second-guessed the Withers decision, even though she’s happy with the new speakers the club might bring in. She said in hindsight, she feels Withers would have been the right person to speak on politics, social media, and the news.

“There are very important things to be discussing right now, and it kind of feels like it’s getting a little bit bland, like we’re scaling back,” she said. “Everything political that’s going on is so overwhelming that it feels like we should be talking about it.”

CU Boulder’s event is one of the largest university TEDx events in the nation, according to its faculty adviser. The spring 2025 event hosted over 1,000 participants.

Student organizers chose the theme “On the Contrary” before Kirk’s assassination. They want people to view opposite opinions as a connection, not as a conflict, according to the TEDxCU website.

Students started a conversation with Withers’ team on Instagram before the formal September email invite. They wanted him to speak about how young people engage with politics and news on social media platforms and not about his politics. They also knew that no matter what Withers talked about, his appearance could be seen as political.

Withers is a progressive who advocates for LGBTQ rights, abortion rights, and health care reform. He was outspoken about his support for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and had been seen as a rival to Kirk’s conservative takes.

Withers also is known for his aggressive debate style, sometimes belittling participants on his show. On a recent podcast he called one debate participant “ignorant” and a “loser.” He’s also faced controversies such as using slurs as recently as 2022. He has since issued an apology.

The 60-person TEDx student group fiercely debated inviting Withers to the 2026 event, Warren said.

Some of the club’s members worried the invite would give Withers a platform for his debate techniques, she said. Students also worried his TEDx speech could become a political endorsement. TEDx rules prohibit partisan politics and inflammatory rhetoric, although speakers can talk about politics or policies.

They also worried about bringing attention to CU Boulder if the Trump administration decided to target Withers.

“No one wanted to be the reason CU came under extra scrutiny,” Warren said.

Others felt he could shed light on how political news gets shared in the social media age and how younger people can be included in discussions about politics, Warren said.

A Withers representative did not respond to an email from Chalkbeat about whether he would have accepted the invitation.

The students have brought in speakers that could be seen as controversial.

Last year’s TEDxCU event featured a talk from Denver-based drag performer Felony Misdemeanor. Drag shows and LGBTQ rights have become more political in recent years, and the students felt the need to take extra safety precautions.

For the first time, the club paid $3,500 for police officers, security guards, and metal detectors for the event, which cost about $35,000 to put on.

Kirk’s shooting at Utah Valley University, a public four-year school near Provo, reinforced the club’s desire to take precautions. It will pay for security at next year’s event, especially as many students have reported feeling unsafe on campus this year.

Gathered in a small circle on a recent Tuesday in October in a large classroom within CU Boulder’s College of Communication, Media, Design and Information, the organization’s 14 leaders said recent major events have taken a toll on their mental health and sense of physical safety.

CU Boulder students dealt with an August shooting hoax. In September, the campus faced a bomb threat. Those incidents factored into the Withers decision.

Absent Withers, the speaker list has started to take shape, including possibly bringing in a Denver Chinese restaurant owner who has talked about the misconceptions behind cultural food practices, such as the safety of MSG. Other speakers they’ve discussed include a veteran who is an emergency room trauma doctor, and an advocate for those who stutter.

“We have to be careful from this point on to protect TED the brand,” Meddah said. “But we also want the people that we bring to be safe. I would prefer to not have it happen rather than put someone in danger during a time that’s really sensitive.”

Sieja, who is studying political science, said he’s sad about having to make the decision because he believes in open discussion and debate.

“The point of TED is to platform ideas worth spreading,” he said, “and I think that’s the point of college in general is to create space for that discourse to happen.”

Colorado voters pass Proposition MM by a wide margin

2025-11-05T05:28:00+00:00

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Colorado voters said yes Tuesday night to pumping more money into the state’s free school meals program by raising taxes on households that make more than $300,000 a year, election returns showed.

The Associated Press called the race in favor of Proposition MM, which asked voters to raise taxes for a second time in three years to help fund the state’s Healthy School Meals for All program.

The program provides free breakfast and lunch to students at participating schools. The proposition is one of two that wanted voters to increase program funding. Proposition LL also passed.

The program has become more popular and therefore more expensive than expected. Money from Proposition FF, the 2022 ballot measure that created Healthy School Meals for All, hasn’t raised enough annual revenue to keep up with expenses.

Advocates on Tuesday night said the passage of the measures is a victory for children’s well-being. They said the money will help combat uncertainty around the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps provide food assistance to families and was cut back by Congress.

Ana Bustamante, whose organization Save the Children Action Network supported both measures, said no student should have to be hungry at school. She said the approval of MM means Colorado could have extra money to help with the federal SNAP cuts.

In a news release, the Keep Kids Fed campaign said the victory means better grades, higher graduation rates, and better outcomes for Colorado students. The organization lists 110 organizations across the state as part of its committee, including hospitals, county governments, churches, teachers associations, and community advocacy organizations.

Anya Rose, director of public policy at Hunger Free Colorado and a member of the Keep Kids Fed campaign, said the victory is a win for students and families.

“While we celebrate this victory for Colorado kids and families, we also cannot ignore that, for thousands of Colorado families, this remains a time of deep economic hardship and food insecurity, made worse by USDA’s refusal to provide full funding for SNAP and the devastating cuts to SNAP Congress approved this past summer,” she said.

Proposition MM is expected to raise $95 million more for the Healthy School Meals for All program. The money could also be used to administer the SNAP program.

The ballot measure would affect an estimated 200,000 Colorado households, or about 6% of households, and raise their taxes by an average of $486 more a year.

Without the money generated from the two ballot measures, about 382 of the 1,803 schools participating would have been unable able to serve free meals starting in January. Families at those schools would have needed to either pay for meals or fill out federal forms to get free or reduced price meals.

Colorado voters overwhelmingly approve Proposition LL

2025-11-05T05:15:50+00:00

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Colorado voters have overwhelmingly approved of Proposition LL, which would help fund the state’s universal free school meals program.

The Associated Press called the race in favor of Proposition LL. The ballot measure is one of two that will increase funding for the Healthy School Meals for All program, which provides free breakfast and lunch to students at participating schools. Proposition MM also passed.

Proposition LL will allow Colorado to keep millions in excess revenue raised for the program instead of providing refunds to certain taxpayers.

The free meals program has become more popular and therefore more expensive than expected. Money from Proposition FF, the 2022 ballot measure that created Healthy School Meals for All, hasn’t raised enough annual revenue to keep up with those expenses.

Advocates on Tuesday night said their passage is a victory for children’s well-being.

Ana Bustamante, whose organization Save the Children Action Network supported both measures, said no student should have to be hungry at school. She said the funding will help sustain the program’s long-term success and ensure schools can continue to offer meals that fuel student learning.

“Not only are we making sure students eat healthy, fresh meals,” she said, “but we’re also supporting Colorado farmers and ranchers.”

Colorado Democratic Party Chair Shad Murib said in a statement that Colorado voters sent a message that no student should have to learn on an empty stomach.

“Voters chose compassion, common sense and Colorado values while saving families money,” he said.

Since Proposition FF passed in 2022, the state has collected millions more than budget officials have estimated, triggering refunds to households that make more than $300,000 a year.

Lawmakers placed Proposition LL before voters to exempt money for the school meals program from the state’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, which requires Colorado to provide tax refunds if money collected from a voter-approved ballot measure exceeds state estimates.

For example, state officials had estimated Proposition FF would collect $100.7 million for the program in the 2023-24 year. Instead, the state collected about $112 million, or about $11.3 million more than expected.

Instead of refunding the money from that tax year, lawmakers asked permission through Proposition LL to keep that $11.3 million, plus $1.1 million in interest, to help fund the free school meals. Proposition LL would also affect future year tax collections and rebates subject to TABOR.

Without the money generated from the two ballot measures, about 382 of the 1,803 schools participating wouldn’t have been able to serve free meals starting in January. Families at those schools would have needed to either pay for meals or fill out federal forms to get free or reduced price meals.

Gov. Jared Polis’ budget proposal keeps K-12 funding promises, allows for college tuition increases

2025-10-31T23:35:21+00:00

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Gov. Jared Polis’ 2026-27 budget proposal unveiled Friday would increase statewide K-12 education spending by $276 million and fulfill funding promises made by lawmakers during this year’s legislative session.

The state’s universal preschool program would also get a small budget increase, while higher education institutions would be allowed to raise in-state tuition by the projected rate of inflation.

Overall, Polis proposed a $47.9 billion state budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year, or a 5.2% increase over this year’s $43.9 billion budget.

Polis’ proposal would bring total K-12 spending by the state and districts to about $10.3 billion, and it would increase per student spending to an average of $12,272, or $413 more than this year.

Polis’ budget follows the plan to phase-in the state’s new funding formula in seven years. It includes 30% of the $500 million needed to update the formula.His proposal also maintains changes to how the state calculates enrollment for the purpose of the budget. In 2026-27, the state will calculate student enrollment on a three-year average instead of four-year average, which is considered more accurate.

Polis’ budget includes a $14.3 million request to increase universal preschool funding in 2026-27, but he plans to submit an updated request to the General Assembly at the beginning of the year. This year, the program cost the state about $344 million.

Polis’ budget proposal also would allow colleges and universities to increase tuition by 2.6% for in-state students and 3% for out-of-state students. State figures show that would raise about $81.9 million more for college and university operations.

Polis also wants to include $14.2 million in the budget for colleges and universities to support salary increases and help keep in-state tuition increases equal to inflation.

In past years, college and university leaders have typically banded together to argue the governor’s proposal for higher-education funding isn’t enough. Higher education leaders have said his budget proposals don’t keep up with costs and they’ve been able to secure more funding from the legislature.

Last year, education took a prominent role in the budget after Polis pitched significant changes to the state’s education funding formula. Lawmakers agreed to alter how long the formula would take to phase-in and make changes to how the state calculates student enrollment for the purposes of the budget.

Polis’ 2026-27 budget proposal will have health care implications and sets up a debate about how to slow Medicaid costs.

Medicaid expenses have grown an average of 8.8% annually over the last decade, or almost double the revenue the state government can keep under the Taxpayer’s Bill or Rights, or TABOR, according to the governor’s office.

Polis said at a news conference Friday that if Medicaid spending were left unchecked, investments elsewhere wouldn’t be possible.

“The increases in Medicaid costs would crowd out essentially everything the state does,” he said. “We would largely just run schools and Medicaid. No money for roads, no money for public safety, no money for housing. So this is what we want to avoid.”

Colorado’s legislative session won’t start until January, but state law requires the governor release a budget proposal on Nov. 1 each year for the following fiscal year. The spending proposal helps signal the governor’s priorities.

While the powerful six-member Joint Budget Committee has the most say on the budget before it’s passed by the legislature, the governor can veto the entire budget or certain appropriations.

The Joint Budget Committee uses the governor’s draft to help craft a spending proposal during the legislative session.

These Colorado schools may have to stop serving universal free meals if 2 ballot measures fail

2025-10-23T23:34:08+00:00

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About 380 Colorado schools might lose their ability to serve all students free meals if two ballot measures fail in the Nov. 4 election, state education data shows.

State lawmakers put Propositions MM and LL on the ballot to shore up Colorado’s Healthy School Meals for All program, which offers free breakfast and lunch to every student whose district opts in. But the program, which was created by a 2022 ballot measure, has proven more popular — and thus, more expensive — than expected.

This past spring, lawmakers decided to fully fund the program through the end of 2025 but then scale it back if voters don’t approve Propositions MM and LL.

Meals would still be free at schools that participate in the federal Community Eligibility Provision program. To qualify for this provision, at least 25% of students must be “directly certified” to receive free meals because their families already receive public nutrition benefits, or because the students themselves are homeless or in foster care, among other criteria.

Of the 1,803 schools participating in Health School Meals for All, 1,421 are part of the Community Eligibility Provision program, according to Colorado Department of Education data. That means that if Propositions MM and LL fail, meals will still be free at almost 80% of participating Colorado schools, including traditional district-run schools, charter schools, and schools inside youth detention centers.

But families at the remaining 382 schools could end up having to pay for meals themselves, or fill out federal applications to determine if their children qualify for free or reduced-price meals based on family income.

Some of those 382 schools may still be able to get Healthy School Meals for All funding if they’re eligible for, but don’t currently participate in, the Community Eligibility Provision. Other schools might opt to foot the bill for free meals if the measures fail.

Since it started in the 2023-24 school year, the Healthy School Meals for All program’s popularity has meant higher costs than predicted.

The state needs about $150 million this year to fully fund the program, but the revenue from Proposition FF, which created the program, has fallen short.

Proposition MM asks voters for $95 million more a year for the school meals program by increasing taxes on households that make more than $300,000 a year. Money from this measure could also be used to help pay for costs related to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which was cut by Congress.

And Proposition LL asks voters whether the state can keep millions in revenue raised for its popular free school meals program instead of providing taxpayer refunds.

Below is a list of schools that do and don’t participate in the Community Eligibility Provision. Only schools not participating in the provision may lose the ability to serve free meals funded by the state if Propositions MM and LL fail.

Federal SNAP-Ed program cuts mean less nutrition education for Colorado students and families

2025-10-17T22:50:57+00:00

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Southern Colorado’s Center school district used to offer young children fruits and vegetables to try that they might not have previously eaten at home, like kiwi and jicama.

The federally-backed program that helped provide these foods also assisted educators in teaching preschool and elementary students’ families why fruits and vegetables are good for their health. With kiwi, for example, the district would send home recipes for a salad that could be made by parents, said Janet Sanchez, Center Consolidated School District 26JT’s director of preschool.

The program in Center and others like it across the state received support through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education, or SNAP-Ed, which ended on Sept. 30 as part of federal budget cuts passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump.

The federal government provided Colorado more than $6 million annually to use on educational programs like the one offered in the 600-student school district located in the San Luis Valley.

These programs were meant to reinforce healthy behaviors and show families that even on a shoestring budget, healthy eating could be in reach. Improving eating habits, in turn, can help improve health outcomes, experts say.

“We serve poverty-level families. This gave children an opportunity to try new foods and try new physical activities,” said Sanchez, who works in a district where 90% of the students qualify for free or reduced price meals.

Administrators and advocates say that without the funding, schools and communities have lost a program that taught children and families healthy habits, including lessons on nutrition and cooking from scratch.

Sanchez said the Center school district can’t replicate these types of programs on its own, especially because teachers aren’t experts on nutrition.

“With our budget constraints,” Sanchez said, “we just can’t continue the teachings.”

Nationwide, the federal government spent about $536 million annually for the SNAP-Ed program. Congress also cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by $186 billion through 2034 and has put more of the cost burden on states. The cuts come during a time when food insecurity is on the rise.

While the SNAP program ensures families get fed, the education component was created to teach healthier habits. States used SNAP-Ed in different ways to educate families and students.

The Colorado Department of Human Services distributed the $6 million in federal funding for SNAP-Ed programs to the Colorado School of Public Health and Nourish Colorado.

The Colorado School of Public Health, a collective of three universities that partner on health research and education, primarily operated its programs in preschools and elementary schools, including ones in the Center district.

Associate professor Jini Puma said the programs promoted wellness in schools and created lifelong skills and habits to prevent serious diseases like obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and cancer.

The SNAP-Ed cuts forced the Colorado School of Public Health to lay off 25 employees who supported school gardens where students learned to grow and taste their own food, developed classroom lessons for teachers, and advised cafeterias on healthier meal options, she said.

Colorado School of Public Health officials would also put together the recipes that were sent home with students, created newsletters about nutrition, and promoted classroom activities that helped keep kids active.

They even reinforced lessons in Center such as proper handwashing techniques and how to stay healthy during the flu season, Sanchez said.

The school of public health’s programs operated in over 140 preschool and 56 elementary schools and taught about 19,000 children, teachers, and caregivers in 19 counties, Puma said.

“We really could change the trajectory for those children so that we can prevent later chronic diseases,” Puma said.

Sanchez said the program greatly contributed to the health of her community. The program not only provided the food for students to try, but also made it easy on teachers to teach about nutrition.

Many of the parents in Center work long hours, she said. The program offered easy activities and meals to try with kids, she said.

“And the program also showed parents that they need to take care of themselves,” Sanchez said.

Nourish Colorado, a nonprofit focused on advocating for accessible, nutritious foods, also was granted the federal funds from the state and delivered nutrition education services in 56 of the state’s 64 counties to help reach almost 400,000 Coloradans. The community-based nutrition education programs worked primarily with adults.

Nourish’s Executive Director Wendy Peters Moschetti said the cuts are bad for everyone, especially because the program has proven to improve the health of communities.

U.S. Department of Agriculture research shows that every $1 spent on SNAP-Ed saves up to $10.64 in health care costs by teaching students and families about nutrition and health.

Colorado lawmakers have asked voters for more money for school meals and food programs such as SNAP-Ed on the state’s Nov. 4 ballot.

She said there’s likely to be significant discussion about how the state would use new revenue if Proposition MM passes. She plans to advocate for the SNAP-Ed programs

“We will be at that table,” Peters Moschetti said. “And that is our best bet right now to continue to fund public, community-based nutrition education.”

Beyond High School: Higher ed’s image problem

2025-10-16T17:39:23+00:00

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A new Pew Research Center poll released on Wednesday finds that Americans continue to have negative views of higher education.

More than three-quarters of Republicans and about two-thirds of Democrats say colleges and universities are on the wrong track. What’s especially troubling for higher education is that these views have gone up among both parties by at least 10 percentage points since 2020. The gap between Democrats and Republicans with this opinion has also narrowed.

While these concerns aren’t new, they come at a particularly turbulent time for colleges and universities, which have been working to communicate the value of a degree and to rebuild public trust. Institutions are also contending with a Trump administration that seeks to exert greater control over higher education.

“Amid rising costs and ongoing debates about the role of colleges and universities in the U.S., Americans have grown more negative about the state of higher education,” said Kim Parker, Pew’s director of social and demographic trends research, in a news release from the nonpartisan research center. “Seven-in-ten now say it’s headed in the wrong direction, and the public gives colleges and universities low marks in several key areas.”

About half of respondents rated higher education institutions as doing only a fair or poor job preparing students for well-paying jobs, offering sufficient financial aid, and developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Seventy-nine percent of respondents said colleges and universities aren’t keeping tuition affordable.

The poll highlighted one bright spot: About 1 in 4 respondents said institutions are doing an excellent or very good job at advancing research and innovation. This is important given cuts by the Trump administration to research grants and funding.

The poll gives college and university leaders plenty to consider as they respond to Trump and the negative ratings.

Higher ed stories from Chalkbeat

Two Colorado students want to make it easier to get admitted to a state university — Two teenagers have pitched a ballot measure that could alleviate student stress by making the college admissions process easier.

CU Denver and Aurora partnership highlights growing statewide trend to make admissions easier — Only about half of Colorado high school graduates go to college, and many question the cost and whether college is right for them.

Colorado colleges serving students of color will lose millions from Trump cuts — The cuts will affect two-year colleges and schools that enroll more students from rural communities the most.

What we’re reading

Mesa president on the next 100 years, skepticism of higher ed and why he’s glad he’s not at Harvard Colorado Public Radio

Colorado’s oldest college was founded before it became a state. Do you know what it is? Fort Collins Coloradoan

CU Boulder makes top 100 “Best Colleges” Axios Boulder

Already battered by cuts, researchers and colleges face federal shutdown impacts Inside Higher Ed

CU Denver and Aurora partnership highlights growing statewide trend to make admissions easier

2025-10-10T23:31:59+00:00

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Surrounded by a half-circle of 20 students from Aurora Central High School, Becky Palacios Romero fielded questions on Thursday afternoon about her time at the University of Colorado Denver.

The sophomore, an international business major, focused on her experience rather than convincing the students at her former high school that they should apply during the week’s final statewide free application day. That’s because every Aurora Public Schools student is now guaranteed acceptance and application fees waived if they meet certain GPA requirements.

Palacios Romero, knowing the group has the option to attend if they want, touched on a few of the more important campus issues: “The food in the dining hall is so good. Last semester, they even had sushi.”

The stress of the college application and financial aid process can dash college dreams, but CU Denver school leaders said they want the agreement signed on Thursday to show Aurora students the university has a place for them — and university officials are willing to help them get to campus. Only about half of Colorado high school graduates go to college and many question the overall cost and whether college is right for them.

This pact highlights a growing Colorado trend in recent months and in the last few years to simplify the four-year university application process. University leaders hope easier admissions policies will help students see themselves on campus and focus conversations on financial aid.

CU Denver announced a similar agreement in September with Denver Public Schools to take the guesswork out of whether students get accepted. Colorado State University Pueblo expanded its direct admissions program on Oct. 3 to include Denver. DPS students will get a letter notifying them they’re accepted before they apply.

Schools such as Metropolitan State University of Denver and the Colorado School of Mines established similar admissions guarantees as CU Denver in recent years. School leaders at Adams State University started the first direct admissions program in 2024. They also send acceptance letters to San Luis Valley students before they apply.

Senior Kimberly Villalobos, 17, didn’t initially have CU Denver in her list of top schools. The guaranteed admissions announcement, coupled with Palacios Romero’s visit, helped her see CU Denver as a campus that might be for her.

Villalobos was one of the first to raise her hand to ask Palacios Romero a question. She wanted to know whether the school would help her even if she’s unsure of her major.

Palacios Romero told her it’s OK to explore her options and try different classes.

“You can mix it up a bit,” Palacios Romero said. “Those credits will help lead on to the major you choose.”

Palacios Romero said after she talked to students that she wished the admission guarantee existed when she attended Aurora Central. She recalled opening her first admission letter and for a moment believed her dreams would be crushed.

The guarantee ensures college dreams stay alive, she said, and might even create a similar dream in others.

“I feel so much joy for them,” Palacios Romero said.

Easier admissions don’t just benefit the students. The agreements help districts create opportunities for students.

Aurora Public Schools Superintendent Michael Giles, Jr. and University of Colorado Denver Chancellor Ken Christensen sign a guaranteed admissions agreement at Aurora Central High School on Thurs., Oct. 09, 2025 in Aurora, Colorado.

Aurora Public Schools’ Zach Rahn said the district has tried to make the college application season simpler by using a system that tracks college, financial aid, and scholarship applications.

About 900 district seniors this year meet the CU Denver guaranteed admissions criteria of having a weighted or unweighted GPA of 3.0, Rahn said.

District officials want students to have a greater understanding and voice in the college-going process, said Rahn, who is the district’s executive director of curriculum and instruction. School leaders also want to reduce student stress.

“And at least in this one circumstance, that barrier has been taken down,” Rahn said. “Students know, ‘There’s a place that I can go to continue my education.’ ”

Easier admissions policies also benefit universities, which compete for students. High school student populations are expected to decline, meaning a smaller student population from which to recruit.

Crysta Diaz, director of undergraduate recruitment and admissions systems operations at CU Denver, hopes the guaranteed admissions agreement can help even more Aurora students see themselves on campus. About 500 Aurora schools alumni attend CU Denver, said school officials.

She’s excited to focus more on the financial aid aspect of admissions — an issue that often creates stress for students. Aurora students will also be eligible for merit-based scholarships and financial aid advising, she said.

“A partnership like this just shows them college is for them, and we’re here to help them, support them and open doors for them,” Diaz said. “It’s a huge access win for both us and the students.”

The afternoon gave Villalobos a lot to think about. She said she’s felt anxious about applying to schools, the financial aid process, and not knowing her major yet.

She liked what she heard from Romero Palacios. She now sees CU Denver as a community that understands her culturally, has attentive professors, and will help her figure out the financial aid process.

Plus, she knows she will get in if she wants to go.

“It makes me feel more at home,” she said.

Voter guide: Proposition MM would raise taxes of high-earners to shore up free school meals program

2025-10-10T01:15:47+00:00

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Proposition MM asks voters for the second time in three years to provide funding for free school meals by increasing taxes on households that make more than $300,000 a year

Voter guide: Proposition LL would allow Colorado to keep more funding for the Healthy School Meals for All program

The measure, on the Nov. 4 ballot, would raise up to $95 million more for Colorado’s Healthy School Meals for All program, which allows participating public K-12 districts to provide free breakfast and lunch to every student. The money could also be used for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps provide food assistance to families and was cut back by Congress.

Proposition MM asks voters a similar question as the 2022 Proposition FF ballot measure that created the Healthy School Meals for All program: Should the state limit tax deductions for households that make more than $300,000 a year? This would affect an estimated 200,000 Colorado households, or about 6% of households.

Those taxpayers would pay an average of $486 more a year, according to state numbers.

Why is this measure on the Nov. 4 ballot?

Due to the Healthy School Meals for All program’s popularity, the revenue generated by Proposition FF isn’t enough to feed every student. The state needs about $150 million this year to fund the program in its entirety, but the revenue is expected to fall short of that.

To address the shortfall, Colorado lawmakers decided to fund the program fully this year for half a year. That means every participating district will be able to feed students free breakfast and lunch through the end of 2025.

What happens after that depends on whether voters pass Proposition MM and another measure on the November ballot, Proposition LL. The two are considered a package deal.

What if Proposition MM doesn’t pass?

Colorado wouldn’t be able to continue the Healthy School Meals for All program in its entirety without the passage of Proposition MM.

In January, only schools with higher percentages of students from low-income backgrounds would still be able to still serve free meals under the deal state lawmakers struck in the spring. Families at other schools would either need to pay for meals or fill out a federal application to see if their child qualifies for free or reduced price meals.

What happens if Colorado voters approve the measure?

The state would be able to fully fund the Healthy Meals for All program as lawmakers and voters intended. That means every participating Colorado K-12 public school district would be able to continue providing free meals for every student.

Colorado lawmakers also want any excess money from Proposition MM to be used to backfill budget cuts by Congress to the federal SNAP program.

Who opposes the measure?

The state has not recorded any registered opponents, according to the secretary of state website. One group has expressed concerns.

The Common Sense Institute, which describes itself as a nonpartisan think tank, released a recent report saying the Healthy School Meals for All program is a costly endeavor and should do a better job of controlling expenses.

Who is in favor?

A broad coalition supports Proposition LL and MM.

Keep Kids Fed Colorado registered its support and lists 110 organizations across the state as part of the committee. These include hospitals, county governments, churches, teachers associations, and community advocacy organizations.

The groups include Hunger Free Colorado, Great Education Colorado, The Bell Policy Center, Colorado PTA, and the Colorado Education Association.

Voter guide: Proposition LL would allow Colorado to keep more funding for the Healthy School Meals for All program

2025-10-10T01:15:35+00:00

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Proposition LL asks voters whether Colorado can keep millions in revenue raised for its popular free school meals program instead of refunding that money back to taxpayers.

The measure, on the Nov. 4 ballot, will only affect refunds for households that make more than $300,000 a year.

Voter guide: Proposition MM would raise taxes of high-earners to shore up free school meals program

Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, requires the state to provide refunds to taxpayers if it collects more money from a ballot measure than estimated. Colorado voters approved Proposition FF in 2022, creating the Healthy School Meals for All program, which allows participating public K-12 districts to provide free breakfast and lunch to every student.

For instance, state officials had estimated Proposition FF would collect $100.7 million for the program in the 2023-24 year. Instead, the state collected about $112 million, or about $11.3 million more than expected. Proposition LL is asking if the state can keep that $11.3 million, plus $1.1 million in interest, to help fund the free school meals.

Why is this measure on the Nov. 4 ballot?

The state needs about $150 million this year to fund the Healthy School Meals for All program in its entirety. That’s more than the state collected through Proposition FF.

What happens after that depends on whether voters pass Proposition LL and another measure on the November ballot, Proposition MM. The two are considered a package deal.

What if Proposition LL doesn’t pass?

If Proposition LL doesn’t pass, the state won’t be able to keep the excess money it’s required by TABOR to send back. That also means the state would have to refund the $12.4 million from the 2023-24 year to households that make more than $300,000 a year.

What happens if Colorado voters approve the measure?

Proposition LL wouldn’t raise enough money on its own to fully fund the Healthy School Meals for All program.

However, it’s part of the equation, along with Proposition MM, to continue fully funding the program into the future.

Who opposes the measure?

The state has not recorded any registered opponents, according to the secretary of state website. One group has expressed concerns.

Who is in favor?

A broad coalition supports Proposition LL and MM.

The groups include Hunger Free Colorado, Great Education Colorado, The Bell Policy Center, Colorado PTA, and the Colorado Education Association.

Colorado colleges serving students of color will lose millions from Trump cuts

2025-09-26T21:37:40+00:00

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Colorado universities enrolling the highest percentages of students of color will lose millions of dollars after a recent decision by the Trump administration.

The U.S. Department of Education announced on Sept. 10 that it will end $350 million in discretionary funding for Minority-Serving Institutions, known as MSIs. These colleges are federally designated as MSIs because they serve a greater percentage of students of color, including Native American and Hispanic students.

The Trump administration plans to redirect the funding to Historically Black Colleges and Universities and tribal colleges, which are different from the MSI designations because they’re identified based on the history of the institution or who controls them.

Colorado does not have any HBCUs or tribal colleges. It has 15 public MSIs, six of which receive federal grant funding. The decision means schools won’t get the money promised to them starting in October.

Statewide, the cuts will most affect two-year colleges and schools that enroll more students from rural communities. School leaders say they’re still evaluating how the cuts will affect student services.

For instance, the Colorado Community College System will lose about $5.1 million at three of its seven colleges designated as HSIs, according to school officials.

Morgan Community College, Lamar Community College, and Pueblo Community College use the money for programs that include student retention and student support efforts, said Fiona Lytle, system spokesperson.

The Education Department news release said federal officials believe the grant programs discriminate by benefitting schools that meet racial or ethnic quotas.

“To further our commitment to ending discrimination in all forms across federally supported programs, the Department will no longer award Minority-Serving Institution grants that discriminate by restricting eligibility to institutions that meet government-mandated racial quotas,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.

Congress created different MSI designations over several decades. For example, the Hispanic-Serving Institution designation, created in 1992, is given to schools that enroll at least 25% Hispanic students.

Advocates say the federal grants help students of color and students from lower-income families who are less likely to go to college. They also argue the money benefits all students, including rural and white students, at many schools that enroll almost every student that applies.

The Trump administration and conservative activists have wanted to end these programs. The grant programs already face cuts in the 2026 fiscal year budget. And a lawsuit by a conservative group argues Hispanic-Serving Institution funding is discriminatory.

Colorado has five universities that are designated HSIs — the University of Northern Colorado, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Colorado State University Pueblo, Adams State University, and the University of Colorado Denver. Fort Lewis College is the state’s only Native American-Serving Nontribal Institution.

Of those four-year schools, Adams State, CSU Pueblo, and Fort Lewis College receive federal funds.

Adams State, the state’s oldest HSI, was recently awarded a $3 million grant over five years in 2024 to improve college preparation, student advising, and cultural understanding.

University officials plan to seek additional support from private and individual donors, as well as other financial sources.

“This challenge only strengthens our resolve,” said Linda Relyea, an Adams State University spokesperson.

CSU Pueblo became a Hispanic-Serving Institution in 2007 and has three active grants that will be discontinued. The school will lose $3.6 million over the next three years.

The school can use 2024 money to continue providing student services into fall 2026, but spokesperson Gena Alfonso said in an email that “the remaining resources are not sufficient to continue programs at their current level.”

“We are in the process of identifying the most critical student support services, such as advising, tutoring, and other programs that support student retention and graduation,” she said.

Fort Lewis College received its designation in 2008. School spokesperson Nardy Bickel said the federal money supports Southwest Colorado’s Four Corners region and Indigenous students.

The school won’t be able to spend $2.27 million in the final two years of a five-year grant.

The money supports the entire campus, including a summer and first-year support program that helps students get acclimated to college, she said. The money also helps keep students on track to graduating.

“For many of these students, FLC provides a crucial path to an affordable four-year college degree while remaining close to their families and communities,” Bickel said. “We are disappointed about the decision to cut funding to this program, which will be felt deeply across our campus.”

And Colorado Mountain College, which offers two- and four-year degree programs, doesn’t receive federal money as a designated HSI, but did submit a $5 million grant proposal this year. A school spokesperson said he does not expect the application will be considered.

Correction: Oct. 1, 2025: The original story omitted Metropolitan State University of Denver from the list of public MSIs in the state. There are 15 public MSIs in the state.

Sept. 26, 2025: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified Arapahoe Community College as an HSI. The story also has been updated to reflect that the Colorado Community College System’s HSIs will lose $5.1 million, not $5.6 million.

Two Colorado students want to make it easier to get admitted to a state university

2025-09-24T22:27:49+00:00

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Cherry Creek High School seniors Kiran Herz and Jaiden Hwang have spent hundreds of hours filling out college applications and writing admissions essays.

Hwang estimates he wrote 30 essays just over the summer. Herz, seeing the stress that fellow students face when applying to college, wanted to find a solution to make college admissions easier.

His research led to a 1997 Texas law that guarantees in-state students who graduate in the top 10% of their high school class receive automatic admission to every public state university. The two Colorado friends hope they can get voters to pass a similar law here during the November 2026 election.

“It’s so incredibly difficult to get into some of these universities,” Hwang said. “There’s so much ambiguity and stress involved.”

In proposing the ballot measure, the two teenagers could initiate a broader statewide discussion about how to get more students to college and alleviate admissions process stress.

National advocates for easier admissions say statewide initiatives take the guesswork out of applying to a university. They say these policies reduce stress, encourage students to stay in state, and help students who come from low-income families or would be the first in their family to attend college see higher education as an option.

The students’ proposal would ask voters to require state-funded universities guarantee admissions to students with a GPA in the top 10% of their high school’s graduating class. Eligible students would need to apply for admittance within two years of graduating. The proposal would limit the number of students admitted to 75% of the school’s freshman enrollment.

To get their proposal on the November 2026 ballot, the students need over 124,000 voter signatures by December. They want voters to know that the stress of applying to college can be unbearable, and they’ve seen peers decide against college altogether.

“The admissions process is incredibly more complicated than it needs to be,” said the Lumina Foundation’s Melanie Heath, who advocates for and has studied easier admissions policies nationally. “And we’ve seen a movement across many states to do some type of simplified admissions process.”

The Lumina Foundation is a nonprofit philanthropy that supports greater access to opportunities beyond high school. (Lumina is a Chalkbeat funder. See our funders here, and read our ethics policy here.)

Nationwide, about a dozen states have guaranteed admissions policies that set a bar at state universities. All students who meet that criteria are admitted. Guaranteed admissions are seen as a way to attract higher-achieving groups of students to apply to state schools.

Another dozen states have direct admissions policies, wherein state colleges notify high school seniors that they’ve been accepted without the students ever needing to apply. Direct admissions programs primarily help students who might not think college is for them.

So far, Colorado state leaders and higher education officials haven’t coalesced around a single strategy. Instead, universities have taken different approaches.

Metropolitan State University of Denver and the Colorado School of Mines have guaranteed admission for students from select school districts. CU Denver recently announced a new program for Denver Public Schools students.

Five Colorado colleges, including Colorado State University Pueblo and Adams State University, have direct admissions.

Colorado doesn’t have cascading admissions, which is when university systems notify students they’ve been accepted at other schools if they’re not admitted to their first choice.

“Maybe even more than the complexity, these policies take the stress out of applying,” Heath said.

In 2022, David Tandberg, during his first year as Adams State University’s president, asked school administrators to create a direct admissions system for San Luis Valley students.

The idea was new to Colorado, but not Tandberg, who previously worked at the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. There, he was involved in helping other states replicate Idaho’s pioneering Idaho Campus Choice, a statewide direct admissions program.

“We in the Valley have the lowest educational attainment rates in the state,” Tandberg said, referring to Alamosa and the San Luis Valley. “And for most students, if they have a high school diploma or GED, we admit them. So why not do direct admissions here?”

Heath said direct admissions policies don’t cost much, and Idaho spends about $30,000 a year sending out letters. The small investment has yielded a big return, she said, with an increase in enrollment by 4% to 8% at open-access institutions. The program has also kept about 8% to 15% more Idaho students in state.

Adams State officials found they only needed to invest time in creating the first direct admission program in the state. University officials drafted letters for families and students and created a system to share student information between school districts and the university.

“I’ve had parents and grandparents stop me in the street and say, ‘You have no idea how much that meant to our kid and to us,’” Tandberg said. “The real delta is with those students that check themselves out, that thought higher ed didn’t want them.”

Fort Lewis College nursing students want to improve rural health care

2025-09-15T20:26:12+00:00

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Ryan Jim wants to become a nurse because he understands health care challenges in rural, Native communities.

Growing up, the 20-year-old Fort Lewis College student would help take care of grandparents and regularly drive them to doctor appointments near his home in Fort Defiance, Arizona on the Navajo Nation reservation. He noticed many of the medical professionals would frequently come and go since they worked on part-time contracts.

“The nurses that travel through do care to learn about the culture, but they are just temporary,” Jim said. “I feel like my people want more of their own community members to provide them care, someone that understands the troubles and hardships that the Native reservation has encountered and still is going through.”

This semester, Jim began his journey to care for his community as one of 22 Fort Lewis students in the inaugural cohort in the Durango school’s new Nursing Hall bachelor’s degree program.

The college’s program launched this fall with the goal of keeping aspiring health care professionals like Jim in the Four Corners region, a rural area where the borders of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah meet.

The program is the only bachelor’s degree-level nursing program in the region. It fulfills a vital need to combat a nationwide nursing shortage that’s more pronounced in rural areas, said Maggie LaRose, Fort Lewis College’s director of nursing.

Nationwide, about 80% of counties are considered health care deserts, with access to services much more difficult in rural areas, according to a national study by GoodRx Research, a prescription and health care comparison website. For example, some counties in the Four Corners region have inadequate access to prescription drugs or primary care providers.

“It’s not uncommon for a patient to travel an hour for the closest medical provider,” LaRose said. “They come in for an appointment, then tomorrow they’re supposed to come in for a scan, and then the next day they’re supposed to do blood work. That just becomes a really difficult thing.”

The program, which has been several years in the making, partners with the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, 350 miles northeast from Fort Lewis College in Durango. Leaders at Fort Lewis have built a new nursing facility paid through philanthropy and government funding, including $1.3 million in congressionally directed spending championed by U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, both Colorado Democrats.

Faculty from CU will help teach students about medical practices and procedures, and classes will also include teachings focused on rural health and Indigenous cultures.

Students like Jim first have to complete general courses before they apply to the nursing program. Already, the school has 89 pre-nursing students who want to apply, LaRose said.

“I really do think it’s going to make a difference and have an impact on the health of our region,” LaRose said.

Chaelyn Ziegler, 21, said she appreciates the new program because it keeps her close to home, is less expensive, and away from bigger cities. Ziegler attended school in San Diego before moving back to Durango.

As a student in the first class of the Fort Lewis program, she enjoys being some of the only students in the new building and learning about human bodies and diseases. She’s not sure if she will stay in the Durango area after she graduates, but she wants to remain in a more-rural setting.

“A small town is kind of where I want to end up,” she said. “I don’t really want to go back to the city.”

Jim shares Ziegler’s excitement of being part of the first class in a new program. He originally thought he would have to go to school in Grand Rapids, Michigan to get his degree. But he enrolled at Fort Lewis College because the school promised it would start the new bachelor’s degree program and would keep him closer to his home.

The nursing program has focused on the health of the region, equipping him with the knowledge he’s desired so he can someday advocate for better health in his community — just like he has done for his family. He said his peers share the same passion.

“We all want to make an impact on our communities and where we all come from,” Jim said. “And I think that’s pretty cool.”

More funding for Colorado schools: Coalition of liberal groups proposing new tax measure

2025-09-04T23:00:22+00:00

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A coalition of liberal groups hope to put a tax reform measure on the November 2026 ballot that could result in significant additional funding for K-12 schools and higher education.

The Protect Colorado’s Future coalition wants to amend a portion of the state’s constitution that mandates a flat income tax rate, currently set at 4.4%.

The draft measure, which the group unveiled Wednesday, would ask voters to approve a new graduated income tax. Taxes would remain at the same rate for earners making under $500,000 a year and progressively increase for earners who make above that threshold, up to 9.2% for earners who make $10 million or more. The group projects that lower earners would save several hundred dollars a year.

Protect Colorado’s Future estimates these changes would generate between $2 billion and $3 billion in new annual revenue for the state. The money would pay for K-12 education, higher education, child care, and health care. State lawmakers would decide how much to invest in each area.

Members of the coalition say the measure is necessary because the state is facing another projected revenue shortfall, exacerbated by cuts in the federal budget. State lawmakers already held an August special session to address a shortfall this year caused by federal tax policy changes. Colorado’s revenue challenges are expected to continue into the 2026-27 budget year.

“It is going to take steps toward our North Star of every student having the resources they need,” said Lisa Weil, executive director of Great Education Colorado, a member of the coalition. “It’s not going to complete the journey, but it is an absolutely critical first step.”

The coalition includes 13 advocacy groups, including the Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition, Colorado Children’s Campaign, and New Era Colorado.

Chris deGruy Kennedy, who is president of The Bell Policy Center, an organization that advocates for progressive policies and tax reforms, said a flat tax benefits wealthier residents.

The coalition has crafted multiple versions of the ballot measure to help gauge what voters want from the initiative. For instance, one version includes more funding for public safety, while another says the money should go toward workforce development.

DeGruy Kennedy said these versions might not end up as the final version that Coloradans vote on. However, the coalition’s ask to change income tax rates will remain the same in the final measure.

The next step is for the coalition to receive a ballot title and then begin to collect signatures to place one of the versions on the 2026 ballot. If it gets on the ballot and is approved by voters, the new tax structure would go into effect in 2027. The money raised would not be subject to a state cap on revenue collections within the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR.

DeGruy Kennedy said he wants the measure to act as the beginning of a public conversation about public benefits that he sees as underfunded in the state. Asking voters to invest in education is within each of the proposals.

Weil pointed out that Colorado lawmakers have struggled to greatly increase funding for K-12 and higher education.

During economic downturns, lawmakers have cut state spending on college and university budgets, which has shifted tuition costs onto families.

Lawmakers also spent less than constitutionally required on K-12 schools for 14 years through a mechanism known as the budget stabilization factor, which pulled school funding for other budget priorities. Schools lost out on over $10 billion from 2009 to 2023.

Although lawmakers ended that practice, their promises to increase K-12 funding have hit snags.

Last year, state lawmakers created a new K-12 funding formula that calls for Colorado to invest $500 million more a year in its schools. But the timeline to phase in the money has already been extended by legislators due to budget challenges.

Even that investment isn’t enough, according to studies commissioned by state lawmakers. The studies found that Colorado should invest another $3.5 billion to $4 billion a year on top of the formula changes to adequately meet students’ learning needs.

The ballot measure is sure to receive conservative opposition. Conservative groups are proposing ballot measures that would cut income tax rates, similar to those approved in 2020 and 2022.

Weil said she hopes the coalition can make the case for its measure. Without the money, she said there’s a huge risk to the state’s education system.

“Colorado is at a moment where we have to decide who we are, who we want to be, and how to meet a very challenging moment,” she said. “And I believe that Colorado values public education.”

Colorado’s Proposition MM will now ask voters to fund free school meals, SNAP benefits

2025-08-25T20:48:29+00:00

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A question before Colorado voters this November will now have two parts: Should the state raise taxes on higher-income earners to pay for free school meals? And should the state use any excess revenue to shore up federal food benefits that will face cuts next year?

Colorado lawmakers voted Sunday in a special session to expand Proposition MM, which will appear on the November ballot. Senate Bill 3 now also adds a provision to MM that any excess funding would be spent on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

The ballot measure will still ask voters to approve about $95 million in new taxes for the state’s Healthy School Meals for All program by increasing income taxes on households earning $300,000 or more annually.

Lawmakers gave the legislation final approval in the House with a party-line 44-17 vote. The bill is headed to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk for his signature.

Lawmakers have been meeting since Thursday in the special session called by Polis to address a state funding shortfall caused by the 2026 federal budget’s change to tax code law. Colorado’s tax code mirrors the federal code, and federal changes mean less corporate tax revenue for the state.

Lawmakers are considering tax code changes during the special session and have also approved spending on certain health care programs, such as Planned Parenthood.

The 2026 budget bill approved by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump makes numerous changes to SNAP, including new work requirements for recipients and higher administrative costs for states.

Colorado Democratic lawmakers filed Senate Bill 3 to prevent more than 300,000 low-income Colorado families, including many children, adults with disabilities, and elderly people, from having their food benefits reduced. The state would use extra revenue from Proposition MM to ensure SNAP recipients get the same level of benefits as before.

“Families struggling with food insecurity should never have to worry about when their next meal will be, which is why Colorado Democrats helped create the Healthy School Meals for All program and have continuously invested in programs like SNAP and EBT,” said state Rep. Katie Stewart, a Democratic bill sponsor.

Other bill sponsors include Democratic state Sens. Katie Wallace and Dafna Michaelson-Jeent and Democratic state Rep. Lorena García.

The bill first fully covers the Healthy School Meals for All program, which has been more popular and cost more than expected. Then the state can use extra funding to counteract SNAP program cuts.

The bill is supported by food advocacy and county government groups. School officials and advocacy groups did not oppose the legislation. However, behind the scenes, some school leaders worried broadening the ballot measure to include SNAP funding might cause some voters to vote no.

That’s especially a concern because the future of the Healthy School Meals for All program depends on Proposition MM and its companion, Proposition LL, passing.

The program has been extremely popular since schools started to serve free meals in 2023, but due to costs, Colorado lawmakers decided to only fund the program through December of this school year. The state would scale back the program in January if the initiatives don’t pass.

Schools that currently participate in the federal Community Eligibility Provision program, which provides funding for free meals at the country’s lowest-income schools, would still qualify for meals free of charge. Schools where at least 25% of the student population qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch because they’re eligible for SNAP or Medicaid would also continue to receive state funding.

Students at schools that don’t meet either criterion would have to fill out a federal form to receive free or reduced-priced meals.

Beyond High School: The impact of research grant cuts

2025-08-22T20:53:27+00:00

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Federally funded research grants have paved the way to life-saving treatments and contribute millions to local economies.

But, according to a new study, the 2026 Trump administration budget cuts could halt that research, result in job losses, and hurt the economy in every U.S. congressional district.

These estimates from the Science and Community Impacts Mapping Project say slashing National Institutes of Health grants, which are just 1% of the federal budget, by $18 billion within Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” would result in $46 billion in lost economic revenue and over 200,000 jobs lost nationwide.

The mapping project researchers compared active grants within the 2020-24 budget years to the projected 2026 budget changes.

A map from the Science and Community Impacts Mapping Project (SCIMaP) showing the projected economic impact of NIH budget cuts in 2026 across the United States.

In Colorado, budget cuts are estimated to amount to $657 million in economic losses and 2,800 jobs in the state’s eight congressional districts. Much of this research is conducted by universities across the state, with the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus expected to lose the most funding.

Advocates for the grants have said that federally funded scientific and medical research improves public health, helps spur innovation, creates jobs, and boosts the economy.

The report says the White House budget cuts research to life-saving diagnostics, therapeutics, and potential cures. That includes a 39% cut to the National Cancer Institute, a 38% cut to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and a 42% cut to the National Institute on Aging.

The report adds that NIH grants “contributed to more than 99% of the 300-plus drugs approved by the FDA from 2010-2019, including drugs to treat metastatic breast cancer, reduce birth defects caused by viruses, and novel antibiotics to treat multidrug resistant ‘superbugs.’”

Higher ed stories from Chalkbeat

Colorado created two programs to get adults back to college. One worked far better than the other. — A Colorado program gives former college students recognition for their time and money. But, so far, students aren’t returning to finish a four-year degree.

Colorado attorney general committed to defending in-state tuition program for undocumented students — Colorado public officials said its in-state tuition program for undocumented students is on firm legal ground.

What to know about the Trump budget bill’s impact on schools that serve students of color — The Trump budget and lawsuits are causing uncertainty for schools that serve a higher percentage of students of color.

Fewer Colorado students are graduating with debt, new report shows — The annual report seeks to show the value of a college education in Colorado.

More out-of-state CSU Pueblo students will pay the same as Colorado graduates starting this fall — The school joins a growing number of regional universities wanting to become more competitive in enrolling out-of-state students.

Jared Polis and governors association release plan to improve education and workforce outcomes — Gov. Jared Polis and the National Governors Association released a blueprint they hope will help state leaders strengthen student learning and the economy.

What we’re reading

What’s Working: Adams State University and its offspring fuel the San Luis Valley Colorado Sun

CU’s chancellor says ‘lots of little things’ keep students coming to Boulder CPR

Trump wants universities to show him the money, or no deal New York Times

Chipotle launches rewards program for college students. Here’s what you can get. USA Today

Colorado lawmakers eye changes to Healthy School Meals for All ballot measure to curb federal cuts

2025-08-22T01:11:09+00:00

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Colorado voters are set to consider two ballot measures this year to help fund free school meals. But state lawmakers now want one of the measures to also cover the costs of federal food benefits that have been cut.

State lawmakers initially put Proposition MM on the ballot to ensure the state’s two-year-old Healthy School Meals for All program, which provides free school meals to all Colorado students, has enough money to operate.

Proposition MM, one of the two November ballot measures, would raise an additional $95 million annually by increasing income taxes on households earning $300,000 or more annually. An estimated 200,000 tax filers, or about 6% of filers in Colorado, would be affected, according to the measure.

Senate Bill 3, under consideration during a special legislative session that began Thursday, would amend Proposition MM to allow money raised by the measure to cover costs associated with the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. State lawmakers say the state would first pay Healthy School Meals for All expenses and then use any extra money to counteract cuts to the SNAP program.

The bill passed its first hearing on Thursday in the Senate Health and Human Services Committee with a 7-2 vote. It will now be heard by the full Senate.

“If voters approve MM, we can both protect access to nutritious school meals for every child and help to safeguard SNAP as families face devastating federal cuts,” Anya Rose, who is Hunger Free Colorado’s director of public policy, testified during the Thursday hearing.

The cuts to SNAP come after Congress approved a tax and domestic policy bill often referred to as the “big beautiful bill.” The law ends an exemption that certain adults, including veterans and those who have aged out of foster care, don’t need to be employed in order to receive SNAP benefits. It also makes states pay for a higher percentage of administrative costs.

State Sen. Dafna Michaelson-Jenet, a Democrat, said SNAP supports over 300,000 low-income Colorado families, including many children, adults with disabilities, and elderly people. Abby McClelland, with the Colorado Department of Human Services, testified that SNAP provides each family with about 48 meals per month.

“SNAP allows them to continue to purchase the foods that they need,” said Michaelson-Jenet, a sponsor of Senate Bill 3. “And it also strengthens our local economies while supporting our farmers and ranchers.”

Along with Michaelson-Jenet, the bill’s sponsors include Democratic state Sen. Katie Wallace, and Democratic state Reps. Lorena García and Katie Stewart. Lawmakers said the bill has support from over 20 advocacy groups, including the Colorado Nurses Association and Hunger Free Colorado.

Colorado’s Healthy School Meals for All program has been popular but has also cost more than expected.

Proposition MM is one of two ballot measures related to the program that voters will consider in November. The other, Proposition LL, would allow the state to retain money already collected for the program. Senate Bill 3 doesn’t make any changes to Proposition LL.

If the ballot measures fail, school meals would no longer be free for all Colorado students. Schools that currently participate in the federal Community Eligibility Provision program would still qualify for meals free of charge. That federal program allows the nation’s lowest-income schools and districts to serve meals at no cost to students without collecting free or reduced-price lunch applications.

Schools where at least 25% of the student population qualifies for the free or reduced-price lunch because they’re eligible for SNAP or Medicaid would also continue to receive state funding.

Students at schools that don’t meet either criterion would have to fill out a federal form to receive free or reduced-priced meals.

The cuts to SNAP aren’t the only issue Colorado’s dealing with due to the tax and policy bill that President Donald Trump signed in July.

Colorado’s state tax code is linked to the federal tax code. As such, the federal changes will reduce this year’s state income tax collections by an estimated $1.2 billion. Most of that comes from corporate income tax revenue.

The state will be able to cover some of that lost revenue, but it faces an $800 million shortfall this year. Colorado is required to have a balanced budget, and Democratic Gov. Jared Polis said the deficit needed immediate action, which is why he called the special session.

“This isn’t about rhetoric; this is about hard numbers and balancing our budget,” Polis said in a news release. “We are committed to working alongside the General Assembly to address the unexpected and immediate revenue shortage.“

The session will focus mostly on tax code adjustments to help plug the revenue hole. Lawmakers will also debate how to prevent increases in health insurance premiums, make changes to the state’s AI law, and preserve certain services, such as access to Planned Parenthood and the food benefits.

Colorado’s PSAT and SAT 2025 scores: How did your school or district perform?

2025-08-21T19:02:24+00:00

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More Colorado 11th graders met or exceeded state expectations on the SAT this spring. But student proficiency on the ninth and 10th grade PSAT showed mixed results.

The testing data was released Thursday by the Colorado Department of Education. Instead of using a state-created standardized test, Colorado opts to gauge how well students are learning through the widely used SAT and PSAT.

“We see some overall mixed results,” said Christina Wirth-Hawkins, Colorado Department of Education chief assessment officer.

Colorado’s 2025 CMAS results: See how your school and district performed

While the results varied by grade level, challenges from previous years remained. The tests once again showed that students scored higher on reading and writing tests than on math. Large score gaps remain based on students’ race, family income, and other factors, such as whether students are learning English as a second language or have a disability.

Improvements on the SAT reading and writing tests were a highlight for the state, with 61.5% of students meeting or exceeding expectations. That’s up from 57.6% last year, or a jump of 3.9 percentage points — the highest increase of any test.

The reading and writing increases on the SAT spanned almost every student group.

The percentage of students considered proficient went up to 60.6% for boys and 62.4% for girls. Among different ethnic and racial groups, only Asian American students scored below last year, a negligible tenth of a percentage point.

In math, the percentage of students meeting or exceeding expectations on the SAT increased by 1.4 percentage points to about 32.5% of students.

On the PSAT ninth grade reading and writing test, scores were basically flat with 65% of students meeting or exceeding expectations. That’s up just 0.4 percentage points from last year.

Student proficiency on the PSAT ninth grade math test backslid by 2 percentage points, with 37.5% meeting or exceeding expectations. Every racial and ethnic student group scored lower than last year.

On the PSAT 10th grade test, fewer students met or exceeded expectations in reading and writing, down 2.5 percentage points to 63.5%. However, more students tested higher on math. The percentage who met or exceeded expectations was up 2.5 percentage points to 36.4%.

Black students were the only student group with gains on both the PSAT 10th grade reading and writing tests.

On all tests, white and Asian American students continue to score proficient at higher rates than their peers.

Senior reporter Ann Schimke contributed to this report.

Fewer Colorado students are graduating with debt, new report shows

2025-08-15T22:36:38+00:00

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A new report shows fewer Colorado college students are graduating with debt — and the debt they do have on average is thousands less than 10 years ago.

The numbers compiled within the state’s seventh Return on Investment report released on Thursday also highlights that a college education continues to help residents stay employed and get jobs with higher wages.

Overall, the report provides a data trove that seeks to show college is worth the time and money. The report breaks down numerous facts and figures that include college enrollment, how many years it takes students to complete a postsecondary education, college costs, and debt figures.

In a letter included within the report, Colorado Department of Higher Education Executive Director Angie Paccione said residents face a big decision in going to college, but it’s worth the investment.

“Postsecondary education continues to help people earn more money and support families and communities across the state,” Pacciones writes in the letter.

The report, compiled with the most recent data from the 2022-23 school year, is released annually to help lawmakers and families understand the value of a college education. In recent years, public skepticism over whether college is necessary has persisted despite data showing there’s a clear return.

This year’s report shows that about 43% of undergraduates, or students earning an associate or bachelor’s degree, left college with debt in the 2022-23 school year. That’s down from 61% of graduates in the 2013-14 school year.

On average, those students with debt who earned a bachelor’s degree graduated with about $24,700 in loans. Meanwhile, students who completed an associate degree left with about $13,100 in loans.

The total debt that graduates statewide hold has also decreased to $241.6 million, compared to $434.4 million in the 2013-14 year.

Still, the report highlights there’s room for improvement, with students taking too much time to complete a degree or leaving with more credits than what’s needed to graduate.

The report also backs up federal data that shows a bachelor’s degree provides higher wages. Bachelor’s degree holders also have the most financial growth over a 10-year span, or a 50% increase in earnings from graduation.

And residents with a four-year degree are also less likely to be unemployed. Just 2.8% of residents with a bachelor’s degree were unemployed in 2024, compared to 7.9% for those without a diploma.

More out-of-state CSU Pueblo students will pay the same as Colorado graduates starting this fall

2025-08-14T21:20:09+00:00

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This fall, students from 10 neighboring states will pay in-state tuition rates at Colorado State University Pueblo.

The decision made late last year to extend in-state tuition rates to more students is part of a broader strategy to attract students as the number of high school graduates nationwide declines. At the same time, more Colorado students are heading out of state.

The school joins a growing number of regional universities wanting to become more competitive in enrolling out-of-state students through so-called tuition reciprocity agreements.

CSU Pueblo’s Kristyn White Davis, who helps oversee enrollment, said many students find Colorado to be a desirable place to attend college, and school officials want Pueblo to become a destination. The school has lower tuition and fees on average than larger universities such as CSU Fort Collins and the University of Colorado Boulder.

“Tuition continues to increase,” said White Davis, who is CSU Pueblo’s vice president for enrollment management and extended studies. “This is a way to sort of reach out to students who might not be able to afford higher priced institutions and sort of meet them where they are — create a reason for them to be able to come here.”

Reports show high school enrollment is expected to decline by about half a million students by 2041, including several thousand Colorado graduates a year starting in 2025. The share of Colorado high school graduates heading to other states for college has also increased in recent years to almost a third.

Like many regional universities, CSU Pueblo relies mainly on enrolling local students — a group that represents a limited pool. About 50% of the nearly 4,000 students attending CSU Pueblo come from the southern Colorado region.

By offering a tuition discount to students in other states through the school’s Regional In-State Equivalent, or RISE, Tuition Program, school officials hope out-of-state students take notice.

The school previously offered in-state equivalent tuition discounts to a limited number of New Mexico students. Now, the school will expand that to 10 states: Arizona, California, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. The program also allows in-state tuition for international students from China, Italy, Mexico, Slovenia, and South Korea.

On average, out-of-state students pay $23,099 to attend CSU Pueblo full time. The RISE tuition discount drops tuition by over $7,000, to $15,940.

The idea to offer these types of so-called tuition reciprocity agreements has been around for years. For example, the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, or WICHE, has several programs that help out-of-state students in western states secure lower tuition rates.

One such WICHE program started in 1988 and has grown to over 170 schools, including CSU Pueblo, that offer out-of-state students 150% of the base in-state tuition rate.

Colorado also has 17 tuition programs for certain out-of-state students built into statute, according to Colorado Department of Higher Education officials. Those laws include a tuition reciprocity agreement with New Mexico and in-state tuition for students returning from the Peace Corps, regardless of where they previously lived.

About 17% of CSU Pueblo’s students are from out of state, and White Davis said the school chose the 10 states based on where the majority of out-of-state students come from. In the first year, White Davis said the goal is to increase out-of-state enrollment by a modest 25 students.

She hopes the RISE program will grow as more out-of-state students see the value of a CSU Pueblo education, she said. Graduates have high economic and social mobility and are competitive in the job market, she said.

“The idea is to really highlight opportunities for students,” she said. “CSU Pueblo is a great place to go to college and have a really wonderful experience.”

Colorado created two programs to get adults back to college. One worked far better than the other.

2025-08-11T18:52:45+00:00

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One of the highlights of Lisa Johnson’s life came when she walked across the stage at Metropolitan State University of Denver last year after earning an associate degree.

The 60-year-old was the first of her siblings to earn a college degree, an achievement she feared would never happen.

“I was over the moon,” Johnson said.

But a busy life filled with a job and kids, a reluctance to amass debt, and health issues have kept Johnson from taking the next step: reenrolling in college to complete her bachelor’s degree.

Going on to get a bachelor’s degree was a goal state lawmakers had in mind in 2021 when they launched a $1 million program, called Colorado Re-Engaged, which allowed Johnson to get an Associate of General Studies. The program gave universities the ability to grant the degree to about 25,000 adults who had previously dropped out of college after having earned enough credits for an associate. They hoped those adults would then be positioned to complete a four-year program for a bachelor’s degree, a credential that leads to far greater financial growth than a high school diploma or associate degree.

While the program has given former students recognition for their time and money, students aren’t returning to finish a four-year degree. That’s partly because the program doesn’t help students with their second attempt — unlike a similar program called Finish What You Started, which was launched by lawmakers at the same time and has had greater success at attracting former students back to college.

Of the more than 1,500 Coloradans who have been awarded an associate degree through Re-Engaged, only about 40, or 3%, have reenrolled to finish their bachelor’s degree, according to data obtained by Chalkbeat Colorado through open records requests.

Meanwhile, a recent state report shows Finish What You Started, created through the same legislation, prompted about 4,700 Colorado adults with some college credits but no degree to reenroll to finish either their associate or bachelor’s degree. Of that number, about 2,000 returned to four-year universities, and about 600 students have successfully completed a four-year program so far, according to a state report.

The biggest difference between the two programs has been funding.

Finish What You Started was created with $49 million in federal pandemic relief dollars to provide direct and indirect support for students, such as financial aid and career and academic advising. That’s compared to Colorado Re-Engaged, launched with $1 million in federal pandemic money but without that type of support.

Making matters more complicated, students who received a Re-Engaged associate degree couldn’t get financial aid through Finish What You Started support because the law excluded students who already held a degree from the more supportive program.

“The legislation even in its name — the Re-Engaged initiative — is an assumption that people as individual operators in the world are going to want to reengage with higher education,” said Shaun Schafer, associate vice president of curriculum, academic effectiveness, and policy development at Metropolitan State University of Denver. “Surely, you don’t need anything to make that happen. They’ll just want it.”

“And that’s a wonderful theory, but I think we’ve got proof that’s not exactly how people act.”

A goal to get more former college students back on track

Dropping out of college is a common experience.

According to National Student Clearinghouse numbers, 757,000 Coloradans, including 620,000 residents under the age of 65 in Colorado, or about 13% of the state’s population, have some college but no degree.

Lawmakers hoped federal pandemic relief money could help lower that percentage and also prop up colleges and universities, improve education outcomes, and strengthen the workforce. They wanted the Re-Engaged program to reach about 25,000 adults who had earned at least 70 college credits, or the equivalent of an associate degree, before dropping out.

Finish What You Started was intended to serve adults who might have fewer college credits — at least 36 — and leverage federal, state, and local resources to help them reenroll to get either an associate or a bachelor’s degree.

Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers show having an associate degree only yields about $70 more per week in wages when compared to having some college and no degree. Associate degree holders are also slightly less likely to be unemployed.

A bachelor’s degree provides a big benefit. Someone with a bachelor’s degree earns almost $450 more a week on average than someone with an associate degree, according to Labor Statistics numbers.

Peter Fritz, who oversees the Re-Engaged program at the Colorado Department of Higher Education, said earning an associate degree has provided Re-Engaged recipients with a sense of personal accomplishment. The program also helped the state receive national recognition for getting associate degrees into the hands of those students.

“It’s not a huge advantage economically for them to have an associate degree,” Fritz said. “But I hear a lot of stuff about personal satisfaction and personal accomplishment.”

However, getting adults reenrolled for their bachelor’s degree through the Re-Engaged program has been a major challenge.

“It’s the ‘re’ in Re-Engaged, in getting those students to feel comfortable and like it’s worthwhile for them to reenroll and finish out the bachelor’s degree, that’s the next big challenge,” he said.

National Student Clearinghouse numbers show just 2.3% of Colorado students who previously dropped out of college returned last year, even as the Re-Engaged and Finish What You Started programs have started to boost those numbers. That’s lower than the national average of 2.7%.

The challenges and successes of Colorado Re-Engaged

The MSU Denver ceremony where Johnson received her associate degree might have been a highlight of her life, but she still holds greater aspirations. When she thinks about reenrolling in college, she said the process feels overwhelming.

Many students share Johnson’s experience, university officials said. The main reason most don’t return is financial, they said.

These adults have households and families to support, jobs and other responsibilities like kids to juggle, and many also need help to afford tuition or books. Without it, going back to college is difficult — a reality reflected in the different success rates of Colorado Re-Engaged and Finish What You Started.

The eight universities participating in Colorado Re-Engaged were given $40,000 each to start the program at their campuses. Schools could use the money for marketing and outreach materials.

Collectively, university records show they have reached out to over 7,500 former students through letters, emails, and phone calls.

But although state lawmakers set aside $1 million for the program, only about half of that was spent, according to a state report. For example, Fort Lewis College sent back $16,625 of the $40,000 because the school needed far less to start the program and begin outreach to students. Other schools reported the same.

Meanwhile, the 30 universities participating in Finish What You Started were given several hundred thousands or even millions of dollars to support students. In addition to marketing and personnel, colleges and universities could use the money to help returning students pay their tuition and advise them on which courses to take to advance their careers.

A state report shows of the $49 million set aside for the program, schools spent about $27 million from 2022 to 2024.

The legislation creating Finish What You Started says students who already have a degree or certificate with 30 or more credits are not eligible for those resources.

Universities advised some adults to opt out of getting their associate degree so they could reenroll as a Finish What You Started student, Fritz said.

Despite the financial challenges, Re-Engaged has helped university leaders better understand what older adults need and new ways to serve this population.

For example, MSU Denver has started to provide general studies evening classes from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. in a bid to help adults work around their schedules and make it easier for them to return, he said. The change is a direct result of learning from Re-Engaged, Schafer said. The school will also keep its financial aid offices open later to help students who work.

The lessons learned are important because of the two programs, Colorado Re-Engaged is the one that will last, with the participating universities planning to continue to award associate degrees. The more expensive program, Finish What You Started, will end in May 2026 because the federal pandemic money has expired.

Lisa Johnson wants to continue her education and become a lawyer.

Johnson said when she thinks about how she got her associate degree, she feels motivated. She wants the same feeling of joy and accomplishment as when she walked across the stage at MSU Denver.

Her goal is to get her bachelor’s degree then go to law school to become a lawyer.

Last month, Johnson said she’d hesitated to reenroll because of recent health complications and worries about college costs. She wished university officials would have reached out to see if she needed help with the process.

But last week, when Chalkbeat asked if she enrolled, she said she felt inspired. She registered on Wednesday at the University of Denver and plans to attend school there in the fall. She said she told herself, “Just go for it.

“And that’s exactly what I am going to do.”

Jared Polis and governors association release plan to improve education and workforce outcomes

2025-07-30T20:05:21+00:00

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Governors should expand their approach to education by preparing students not just for work, but civic life and personal well-being too. And they should track and publish people’s progress towards key education-related goals.

These are a few of the recommendations identified by Gov. Jared Polis and the National Governors Association to help state leaders strengthen education, student learning, and the economy. The recommendations are part of Polis’ time as the NGA’s 2024-25 chair — each chair focuses on solutions to a nationwide problem. Polis’ term concluded earlier this month.

After a year of studying the topic, Polis’ and the NGA’s Let’s Get Ready Initiative says that for too long, states have focused on only math and reading proficiency, but it takes more than just those skills to succeed in the workforce.

Polis said in a letter about the initiative that there’s a mismatch between the skills states are tracking and the preparation students need to succeed once they leave school. He added that states don’t have a clear way to monitor how or whether students succeed over the long term while building resilience and competitiveness for social and economic change.

“The Let’s Get Ready! Initiative is a call for governors to demand better,” Polis said. “We have a responsibility to drive innovation within our systems, bolster our capacity to measure what works and what doesn’t, and most importantly, to prepare our students for workforce readiness, civic engagement, and well-being.”

The organization’s news release about the blueprint, published this week, said it worked to get feedback from educators, parents and families, students, researchers, and community and business leaders about the topic.

Here are the five recommendations from Polis and the NGA:

Governors should set clear goals for education, including early childhood to career outcomes, as well as short-term and long-term goals for residents participating in the economy. State leaders should then develop strategies to meet those goals and track progress.
Governors should also find ways for state agencies, which often work in silos, to communicate and coordinate in an effort to improve educational and career outcomes.
States can keep track of outcomes and goals by building a long-term outlook, or longitudinal data systems, that tracks the progress of students from early childhood to the workforce.
Governors then can display the data they’ve collected for public consumption in a user-friendly format. This data can help researchers and the public evaluate progress and recommend when to make adjustments.
Despite federal uncertainty, state leaders should continue to advocate for federal partnerships, or create state consortiums, that assess student performance, identify the students who need the most help and direct funding toward them, and contribute to national research.

Beyond High School: Student loan caps

2025-07-24T18:27:08+00:00

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For the first time ever, the federal government has placed a cap on student loan borrowing. Borrowers will now have a lifetime limit of $257,500 for all federal student loans.

Congress approved the changes in President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” passed earlier this month. And there’s plenty more borrowers should know:

First, unsubsidized student loans will be capped at $20,500 a year. Graduate students will have a lifetime limit of $100,000 for those loans.
Aspiring doctors and lawyers will also be limited in their borrowing. They’ll now only be able to borrow $50,000 a year, with a $200,000 lifetime limit.
Parents paying for their children’s education won’t be able to borrow as much. They previously were able to borrow up to an amount equal to the cost of their child’s full college education. Parent PLUS loans, as they are known, will now be capped at $20,000 per year per child. Parents will also have a $65,000 lifetime limit per child.

The changes highlight the Trump administration’s desire to pull back from the student loan borrowing business.

Experts worry the changes will just drive borrowers to more costly private student loans. Or they fear students just won’t go to college at all. Others are concerned that the bill will exacerbate doctor shortages nationwide.

Groups like the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators issued a statement just before Trump signed the bill on July 4 about its concerns.

NASFAA President & CEO Melanie Storey said in a July 3 statement the bill could limit access to college for low-income students. Storey, whose nonprofit association represents financial aid professionals, said she has multiple concerns about the bill, including the new limits imposed on the Parent PLUS loan programs.

This “may drive borrowers to riskier private loans, which are not available to all borrowers,” she said.

Higher ed stories from Chalkbeat

Colorado students, education leaders try to help TRIO college-access program avoid Trump cuts — College administrators said Trump cuts to TRIO hurt the about 17,500 students who benefit from the program in Colorado.

Broken car? Late rent? Community College of Aurora gives students help with life emergencies — The Community College of Aurora received a grant to provide students money when they’re facing life emergencies. They hope the emergency aid keeps students in school.

What we’re reading

What a smaller Education Department is doing under Trump The New York Times

The Trump administration wants to eradicate DEI in higher education. These Black scholars still plan to thrive. The Denver Post

A Colorado trucking school is trying to train drivers to handle the unique challenges of mountain driving The Colorado Sun

Successful program for migrant students is on Trump’s chopping block Inside Higher Ed

Colorado attorney general committed to defending in-state tuition program for undocumented students

2025-07-23T00:24:21+00:00

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After a court order ended Texas’ in-state college tuition program for undocumented students last month, advocates are warning that the Trump administration may mount legal battles in other states with similar programs.

Since its win in Texas, the Trump administration has pursued legal challenges to programs in Kentucky and Minnesota. However, no legal challenge or Department of Justice inquiry has been made so far in Colorado, according to Attorney General Phil Weiser’s office.

The Trump executive order says that allowing in-state students who aren’t citizens to pay less college tuition than out-of-state students who are citizens is discriminatory.

Colorado public officials said the state’s program is on firm legal ground, with Weiser’s office saying he’s committed to defending Colorado’s 2013 in-state tuition law, which allows undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates.

The Colorado state law is not a residency requirement, but instead says students must have attended a Colorado high school or been physically present in the state for at least one year, a Weiser spokesperson said in a Tuesday email statement.

“(It) does not favor undocumented residents over out-of-state American citizens,” the spokesperson said. “Colorado law, therefore, does not violate federal law.”

Colorado is one of 23 states and Washington, D.C. that still have a program in place. Colorado officials have said they do not share how many students have qualified for in-state tuition due to privacy concerns.

Texas, one of the first to create such a program and the first the Trump administration sued, ended its program just six hours into the lawsuit after state officials including Attorney General Ken Paxton agreed it was discriminatory.

Krystal Gómez, who is the managing attorney with the Texas Immigration Law Council, said during a Tuesday news conference that groups like hers are seeking to slow the unraveling of the Texas program and set a precedent on how to fight this type of legal challenge.

“The question before us isn’t just about tuition rates,” Gómez said. “It’s about whether we’re going to allow fear and confusion to replace clear law and basic fairness.”

These lawsuits stem from an April 28 presidential executive order that called to punish states with so-called sanctuary policies as well as pursue legal action against states with programs for undocumented students.

In a Tuesday statement, a Gov. Jared Polis spokesperson said states have the right to determine in-state tuition laws. The spokesperson said the governor is committed to expanding access to higher education.

“Dismantling or micro-managing in-state tuition across the country is absurd and will only close off opportunity and make pursuing higher education more difficult and expensive,” the spokesperson said in the statement.

In Colorado, colleges, universities, and state officials evaluated the impact of the order before the Colorado Department of Higher Education sent a letter in May saying they believe the state’s program is rooted in state and federal law.

“Under federal law, states have the authority to offer certain types of assistance to individuals regardless of immigration status,” the letter reads. “We want to make clear that while federal executive orders shape federal enforcement priorities, they do not create new laws, nor do they override existing federal statutes.”

About 408,000 undocumented students enroll in higher education each year, including about 6,800 in Colorado, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal.

Undocumented students in states without these laws must pay full out-of-state tuition or attend schools with programs that provide in-state tuition opportunities. That drives up the cost of tuition to levels many students could never afford, especially because they are not eligible for federal financial aid, advocates said.

In Texas, local and national advocacy groups, such as the ACLU of Texas, the Texas Civil Rights Project, Democracy Forward, and The National Immigration Law Center, have filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit that ended the program.

ACLU of Texas legal assistant Valerie Alvarado highlighted that Texas lawmakers have failed to repeal the program for years, and the Trump administration’s actions go against the will of the people.

“What happened here clearly exploits the litigation process and disrespects the legislative system we have here in Texas,” she said.

Advocates argue that these programs help students who have been in the United States since they were young get jobs and participate in the economy. Without these programs, there will be fewer opportunities for them to get good paying jobs, they said.

In Texas, the nearly 20,000 students who have benefited from the Texas DREAM Act earn more than $430 million annually thanks to the education the state afforded them, said Juan Martinez Guevara, Texas advocacy manager for United We Dream, an immigrant-led youth advocacy organization. That’s money that adds to the state’s tax base and helps the state and local economy, he said.

What to know about the Trump budget bill’s impact on schools that serve students of color

2025-07-17T15:00:00+00:00

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Colleges and universities with a high percentage of students of color have been underfunded for decades by the federal government. But since President Donald Trump took office, they’re facing new challenges that will likely further impact their finances and ability to educate students.

These schools will receive less funding in Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” which he signed into law on July 4. At the same time, another pool of funding for schools that largely or historically serve students of color was left untouched within the budget but faces a legal challenge.

Together, the Trump administration’s budgetary cuts and the pending lawsuit could cause the schools to reduce services for students, hike tuition, and even close their doors, according to higher education experts. This could mean students of color or from lower-income families will be less likely to go to college. But it will also impact all students — including rural and predominantly white students — and the communities where the schools are located.

The schools impacted by the Trump budget include Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, and Minority-Serving Institutions. Some schools will be more impacted than others.

While Trump has signed executive orders, including one in April, that have made statements supporting Historically Black Colleges and Universities, known as HBCUs, Trump’s budget bill makes a 14.4% cut to Title III funding that includes HBCU support.

Tribal Colleges and Universities, which are tribally controlled colleges with a mission to serve Native American students, also will be impacted by that cut, but stand to lose even more due to cuts to the federal Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian Education, one of three major funding sources for TCUs. Support for these 37 colleges within the department will drop to $22 million — down from $127 million.

Some Minority-Serving Institutions also will lose funding. MSIs receive that designation for serving a certain percentage of students of color. For example, a Hispanic-Serving Institution must enroll at least 25% Hispanic students.

Additionally, Hispanic-Serving Institutions specifically face a lawsuit filed by the state of Tennessee and Students for Fair Admissions, run by conservative activist Edward Blum, that argues a pot of federal grant funding for HSIs is based on race and is discriminatory.

If successful, the lawsuit threatens to cut funding not just for HSIs but possibly all MSIs that rely on similar grant funding, according to Boston College associate professor and higher education expert Andrés Castro Samayoa.

What do the school designations mean?

Over the years, Congress has enshrined into law federal support for these different types of colleges and universities.

Marybeth Gasman, the executive director of the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions, said the designations are different because they were approved by Congress over several decades.

For instance, Congress passed higher education laws in 1965 to strengthen Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which include about 100 colleges and universities founded before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to provide Black students college opportunities during racial segregation.

Congress federally recognized the 37 Tribal Colleges and Universities in 1978.

Lawmakers also created Minority-Serving Institution designations for schools. While HBCUs and TCUs received their designation because of their history or who controls the operations, Minority-Serving Institutions get their names based on the types of students they enroll.

The Hispanic-Serving Institution designation was recognized by Congress in 1992. In the last two decades, it created other MSI designations such as Predominantly Black Institutions and Native American-Serving, Non-Tribal Institutions.

Colorado has 14 public Hispanic-Serving Institutions in the state, according to the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities. Fort Lewis College is a Native American-Serving, Non-Tribal Institution; the state does not have an HBCU or TCU.

Why does this matter to students?

Most, if not all, of these schools are underfunded compared to schools without a designation and educate students using far less money, according to Castro Samayao.

For example, HSIs get approximately 68 cents per every federal dollar non-Hispanic serving schools receive, according to a Third Way study. Tribal colleges also have been underfunded for decades, according to a ProPublica investigation.

The 2026 federal budget includes the planned 14.4% reduction, down to $667 million, in Title III funding meant to support schools in improving educational quality, management, and financial stability.

Castro Samayoa said federal cuts and a ruling in the lawsuit against HSIs would mean universities have less overall support for students academically and financially. Most of these institutions won’t be able to recoup federal funding losses which could also mean higher tuition costs.

Students of color in Colorado and elsewhere could be less likely to go to college because colleges and universities might have less financial support for them or because of increases to tuition, he said. These are groups that don’t go to school at the same rate as their white peers.

Castro Samayoa said simply doing away with funding sources “is not doing anyone any favors.”

How does this impact communities?

American Indian College Fund Executive Director Cheryl Crazy Bull said she worries some tribal colleges will close. The Denver-based fund provides scholarships and other support for Native American students.

She said while the tribal colleges have a focus on Native American communities, the schools also serve rural and white communities. They’re often economic engines, employ members of the community, and help with local problems, like solutions in the fishing industry, she said.

“One of the underrecognized and underadvocated aspects of the tribal colleges is the way that they bring races together,” Crazy Bull said.

Gasman said people don’t realize that the designations are signals of representation, meaning these schools are defined more by being open to any student, she said. They often are more representative of their communities than other schools and have larger numbers of students from low-income families and those who are the first in their families to go to college.

Less federal funding, she said, means all communities lose out.

Broken car? Late rent? Community College of Aurora gives students help with life emergencies

2025-07-01T22:01:11+00:00

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A broken down car. Medical bills. Or not enough money for rent.

Many of the Community College of Aurora’s 8,500 students routinely face these types of emergencies.

The challenges are often big enough to cause them to drop out.

To prevent that, the Community College of Aurora is part of the growing number of colleges and universities that provide students with a small amount of emergency financial assistance to help keep them in school.

Last school year, CCA gave over 30 students one-time grants of up to $500 each.

“It is a low amount, right?” said Reyna Anaya, CCA vice president of student success. “But the impact may prevent a student from stopping out.”

In total, CCA spent $16,000 on the emergency-aid program in the 2024-25 school year. The college will increase that amount by more than a third next year thanks to a $10,000 grant from national nonprofit NASPA - Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education. CCA was one of five colleges out of a nationwide pool of 300 applicants to receive the $10,000 grant to support students.

Still, CCA administrators worry the funding won’t be enough to keep up with the need, especially if the Trump administration follows through on threatened cuts to federal safety net programs.

“The need is very high,” Anaya said. “And as we are seeing funding cuts and resources being pulled back, we recognize the need is going to be higher and we’ll be serving more students.”

The CCA aid program is a sign of how more colleges and universities, in Colorado and across the country, are following the lead of K-12 schools in offering students support with basic needs.

CCA school leaders have long known that students needed help with more than just academics, but saw the demand for this help grow during the pandemic. Many Aurora community college students are from lower-income backgrounds and face more personal and financial challenges in finishing school.

Most students are also enrolled part-time, meaning they have less financial aid and are likely working to support themselves through college.

CCA first surveyed students in 2023 about what they needed to succeed, and based on the feedback, it invested heavily in food resources. Since then, it has also slowly built out its emergency-aid program to help students when life issues arise.

CCA students don’t have to ask for the money themselves; they can be referred by a professor or an administrator, said Andrea Rascón, CCA project coordinator for student success.

The $10,000 NASPA grant will help the school invest more in the program. The grant is part of the organization’s national effort to strengthen college retention by addressing non-academic barriers that disproportionately affect students who are from low-income backgrounds and those who are the first to go college in their family.

However, giving students money alone hasn’t correlated to students completing college, according to a Temple University HOPE Center study. Other studies, including one that reviewed Georgia State University’s pioneering program, show emergency grants can help students graduate.

CCA leaders said they aim to increase the effectiveness of the grants by providing coaches who work one on one with students facing an emergency. Coaches then can understand the challenges the student is facing and connect them to other community resources or academic services.

The program has grown in popularity in the last year, and many students spread information by word of mouth, Rascón said. School officials plan to begin tracking how many students stay in school next year to make a stronger case for expanding the program.

Beyond High School: Pell Grant uncertainty

2025-06-27T19:10:07+00:00

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Earlier this month, we published a story focused on the Trump budget bill’s proposed changes to Pell Grants. The bill proposal would require students to take more classes to be considered for full free federal financial aid. The budget would also eliminate eligibility for many part-time students.

But the Senate then drafted revisions to reverse those changes.

The revisions are encouraging for Colorado higher education leaders, but there are still concerns that Pell changes could make it into the final budget.

Pikes Peak State College President Lance Bolton told me in an interview that community college students would especially be hurt by any changes to Pell.

The original Trump budget proposal would have affected more than a quarter of Pikes Peak’s about 17,000-student population. About half of those students would have lost federal aid altogether because so many students are attending part-time.

Bolton said part-time students already face some of the steepest challenges. They’re often struggling to balance work, parenting, and complicated lives, Bolton said. Part-time students are also more likely to come from low-income backgrounds

Bolton said he’s seen those students learn skills that make them more employable. The help from the federal government provides them a path to self-sufficiency and prosperity, he said.

“They would be knocked off that path by the changes in the Pell grant process,” he said. “It certainly would have been really unfortunate for them.”

The school would also likely have to cut programs because students might opt out of pursuing a college education if the changes pass, Bolton said. It’s a situation many community colleges could face.

“We want to protect the supports that help our most vulnerable students and make sure they have a pathway to prosperity, a pathway to economic self-sufficiency,” Bolton said. “And that’s what Pell Grants have always been about.”

Thank you for reading. Let me know if you have any tips or comments at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.

Higher ed stories from Chalkbeat

Colorado’s residents hold more degrees with value than most other states — The revamped Stronger Nation report looks at states with college-educated individuals who earn a typical wage 15% higher than those who hold just a high school diploma.

‘Why are we making it harder?’ How Trump’s budget would impact grants for low income students — About seven million students nationwide rely on free federal money to go to college. Here’s what students worry about if Congress makes changes to Pell Grants.

What we’re reading

CU Regents vote to continue with potential censure of Wanda James Colorado Public Radio

Colorado’s theatre programs are declining. Will career and technical education be the second act? KUNC

Statue of Bill McCartney, the title-winning coach who called homosexuality an “abomination,” is dividing CU The Colorado Sun

Trump promised to welcome more foreign students. Now, they feel targeted on all fronts The Associated Press

Behind the turmoil of federal attacks on colleges, some states are going after tenure The Hechinger Report