Enrollment at the University of Colorado Boulder increased by 3.4 percent (or 1,275 students) this fall, bringing the total student population to 38,428. There were 69,248 first-year applications for the fall of 2024, up from 57,539 last year. Overall, the boost in enrollment is the second-largest increase over the last decade.
The school attributes the success to new efforts aimed at ensuring returning students have the resources needed to stay in school and obtain their degrees, rather than dropping out. They also intentionally decreased the number of first-year students last fall by 1.5 percent to ensure they had focused support. The plan appears to have worked, with CU Boulder’s fall 2024 census data showing the fall 2023 first-year cohort’s second-fall retention rate over 90 percent for the first time in history.
Amy Hutton, the associate vice chancellor for enrollment management at CU Boulder, says the school is also becoming more diverse with students from historically marginalized backgrounds growing from 26.9 percent to 27.7 percent.
“Certainly Coach Prime has had a significant impact on our students this year and on our prospective application numbers and we’re very grateful for the exposure that he’s brought to the institution,” said Hutton at a press conference. Hutton also mentioned anecdotal stories from students sharing that they came to the institution due to his presence on campus.
First-year students who identify as Black or African American increased by 7.9 percent to 260 total students, marking the highest number of black students enrolled in the school’s history.
Gains were also reported among first-year Hispanic/Latino students, up 1.9 percent to 1,068 total students, and Asian American students, up 1.2 percent to 853 total students. Meanwhile, first-year White students decreased by 4.2 percent to 4,856 total students. Hutton attributes the increase in part to an ever-changing marketing plan aimed at meeting prospective students where they are.
When asked why the school has seen a boost in the number of minoritized students rather than a dip following the affirmative action ruling from the Supreme Court of the United States like many other institutions, Hutton explained that CU Boulder has never used race or ethnicity as a factor in its applications.
With exponential growth on the horizon, the school could potentially eclipse 40,000 students in 2025. The institution prides itself in intimate class sizes with the current student-to-teacher ratio sitting at 18:1. Hutton says the school will see an increase in the budget due to the boost in enrollment numbers, but it’s still unclear how those additional funds will be used in 2025.
One thing is for certain though, the school has more student housing on the horizon. The topic has become hot over the last week in the city of Boulder due to the potential closure of the non-university-owned historic Ash House apartment building.
In less than 10 days, at least 13 student renters and up to all 60 current tenants could be displaced from the building near CU after the city issued a closure notice to the property on Sept. 16.
It follows the creation of 15 additional bedrooms at the property without proper building permits, land use approval or life-safety inspections, resulting in housing that isn’t up to code or life-safety requirements.
On Friday, Sept. 20, a motion will be heard in the Boulder County District Court requesting that the court lift the temporary closure order. The move follows a civil complaint filed with the court by the property owner alleging the city’s actions were taken without immediate evidence of danger to tenants, violating the owning LLC property rights. Hutton says the school does provide emergency housing to students and is in contact with those who have the potential to be displaced.
“The CU Boulder Campus Master Plan lays out a strategy to increase on-campus beds from 4,400 to 6,000 over the next 15 to 30 years,” said university spokesperson Stacy Wagner. The first step is the construction of Residence One, an apartment building for 330 students set to open 2026. The school CU Boulder is currently analyzing additional opportunities for additional on-campus housing that would follow residence one.
The only decrease in enrollment this fall at CU is tied to first-year, first-generation students which declined from 16.1 percent in fall 2023 to 14 percent in fall 2024.
“We believe the decline in first-generation, first-year students was due to FAFSA delays in spite of CU’s reallocation of additional resources to support students,” said Hutton, in a release.
Overall the outlook is bright for the university’s growth. Hutton says CU Boulder is also looking forward to welcoming students who will benefit from the recently enacted HB-1340 which will create a tax credit for Coloradans and continue to increase the school’s population of local students which also grew this year. The school welcomed 4,017 Colorado resident first-year students and 1,046 resident transfer students—its largest since the fall of 2004.
