University of Colorado Boulder alumni will have to resort to using services like Yahoo, Outlook, or Gmail — Hotmail, anyone? — for their email needs. The university announced the “Email for Life” program that allows alums to use @colorado.edu addresses will come to an end on Aug. 31.
The university said the main reason for ending the program is to protect their digital infrastructure in a rapidly changing and increasingly volatile digital environment. According to the university’s Office of Information Technology website, elimination of the program is due to rising licensing costs, declining usage, significant security risks from inactive accounts, and evolving compliance requirements. Alumni were notified in January.
“It feels fair to have an ongoing affiliation with a university that I paid thousands of dollars to,” said Tres Spicher, who graduated from CU Boulder with a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics in 2006 and again in 2008 with a Master of Science in 2008.
He was disappointed when he got the email notification of the program’s discontinuation.
“That's one of the funny things about this email that they sent out. It keeps emphasizing, “Well, you are a “Forever Buff,” and that rings a little bit hollow that they're using that terminology in the context of completely ignoring the promise to have “Email for Life,” Spicer said. “And they're saying, ‘If you want to stay in contact, please do update us with your personal email address’ — which just seems silly when all of the levers for doing that are within their control.”
Spicher also felt the frequently asked questions online didn’t clearly explain alternatives.
“If you go through the FAQ, it's basically like, ‘Yeah, we considered other stuff, but just decided we didn't want to do it,’” Spicher said. “It's like, “What are my alternatives? We recommend you migrate to a personal email service, and you have until this date.’ And that's it.”
The “Email For Life” program was launched in 2005.
The university also said it was unaware of what cybersecurity risks the program would bring in 2026 when they launched it 20 years ago. CU Boulder spokesperson Nicole Cousins said a majority of peer institutions have also shifted away from “Email For Life” programs.
“We're looking at, over the years, an increase in cybersecurity threats such as viruses, phishing, and hackers. Those pose a risk to our digital infrastructure,” Cousins said. “One of our core priorities at CU Boulder is to align our infrastructure to our mission of supporting the success of all students, faculty, and staff. So with that, securing our digital environment better protects student private information. It also better protects faculty research.”
The university has covered the costs for the program to continue. Cousins said keeping up with online security standards would drive up the costs.
“The main standard for that today is dual authentication. That's also a bit of a moving target because as online security threats continue to evolve, so will the need for us to bolster our cybersecurity response,” Cousins said. “If we were to add dual authentication for alumni, that would exponentially drive up our costs.”
Today, there are 320,000 living CU Boulder alumni. The university said only 7.5 percent logged on to colorado.edu last year. Cousins said that wouldn’t justify the costs to continue the program.
Alumni must provide the Alumni Association with a personal email address that the university should use to keep connected with important university communications, such as alumni news, events and updates.
They must transfer the emails they wish to keep to a personal account because the university will not be able to recover email data after the deadline.
Finally, they must update accounts that use the university email address. That means any websites and third-party services. A popular use of university email addresses is to get student discounts on subscriptions like Amazon Prime.
Spicher said he personally had a few accounts that are tied to his university email address and admitted that he took advantage of those perks early on. But, since those websites use third-party services to validate those identities, that’s no longer the case. He said he primarily used his address because it wasn’t associated with big tech companies.
“We've all seen the increasing reach of big tech into our lives, and a lot of folks are losing trust in these companies as opposed to 10 or 15 years ago,” Spicher said. “And having an option for email that is more directly affiliated with an institution that's supposed to have a little bit more trust, like a university, was appealing.”
Spicher has expressed his displeasure through an email to the university. He received an emailed response from the university with the same explanations. He thought the email left a lot to be desired, but nothing unexpected.
Other CU Boulder alums have shared the same sentiment. A petition was created on Reddit in an effort to keep the program going. Cousin said the university is aware of the petition but couldn’t comment further on it because it hadn’t been formally brought to officials.
As for soon-to-be graduates in the Spring Class of 2026, they will keep their colorado.edu email accounts for one year after commencement.
Other universities within the University of Colorado System have Email for Life programs. At least two of them are keeping them for now.
Jennifer Woodruff, a spokesperson for the University of Colorado Denver, said the school has no current plans to discontinue their Email for Life program. But as the digital landscape evolves, she said the university will continue to evaluate their service and communicate any future updates proactively.
University of Colorado Colorado Springs spokesperson Jenna Press said alumni will get to keep their UCCS email address. The school may look at changing this at some point in the future.
CU Anschutz didn’t respond at the time of publication.
