


Despite the University of Colorado’s efforts to improve affordability, its students still had hundreds of millions of dollars of unmet financial aid needs in 2024.
CU doled out $276.6 million in financial aid at all its campuses in fiscal year 2024, which is more than Colorado’s appropriation for the entire state for need-based financial aid.
The CU System has increased the financial aid it gives out by 97% in the last 10 years. Despite these efforts, there was $244 million of unmet need at the CU campuses last year including $95.2 million at CU Boulder.
CU System Chief Financial Officer Chad Marturano presented an update on financial aid and student debt during a University of Colorado Board of Regents finance committee meeting on Thursday.
“I talked about the good side of this, that we’re targeting aid to lower income groups,” Marturano said. “So despite those efforts, there’s still a significant amount of unmet need across all income groups.”
CU Boulder, Marturano said, targets financial aid at lower income individuals. On average, in-state undergraduate students from households earning less than $60,000 a year had their tuition and fees fully covered by grant awards and scholarships. He also mentioned the CU Promise program, which covers tuition and fees for students with significant financial need and can, in some cases, include an additional stipend.
“The takeaway here is we’re prioritizing trying to make college as affordable as possible for folks that are on the lower side of the socioeconomic background,” Marturano said.
In 2024, 69% of in-state, undergraduate students at CU Boulder did not take out a loan. More than 73% of in-state, undergraduate students with a FAFSA received some type of aid from CU Boulder, and more than 32% received enough to cover their tuition.
Students at CU Boulder had $95.2 million of total unmet financial need in 2024, which is the difference between what the university believes the students and families can bring contribute and the total calculated cost of attendance.
“Individuals that have the most unmet need are actually the lowest income group,” Marturano said. The unmet financial need for students from households making less than $32,499 at CU Boulder was $32.5 million out of the $95.2 million total unmet need.
Nationwide, Marturano reported, there’s about $1.77 trillion in student debt. Total federal student debt in Colorado is $28.9 million, and 73% of Colorado borrowers have a balance of less than $40,000.
Despite this amount, the $1.77 trillion, Marturano said the university believes higher education does pay off.
Based on Bureau of Labor statistics, an individual with a bachelors degree will make on average $1.8 million more throughout their career compared to someone with only a high school degree.
“The most effective way to limit debt for a student is time to degree,” Marturano said. “So if you can keep a student progressing in their academic career, that’s the largest way to provide them savings in terms of college expenses.”
System-wide, about half of CU students graduate with no debt. Loan default rates are at 0% due to suspended loan repayments during the pandemic. Before that, CU students had lower default rates compared to the state and national average.
Marturano said that shows their students can find employment, make money with their CU credentials and pay off their loans.
Regent Ken Montera said after going on outreach trips throughout the state, he’s surprised about how little information parents and families have about financial aid options available to them.
“Parents, I just don’t think, still understand how many options there are for financial aid,” Montera said. “So I think when we continue these outreach trips that we as leaders and the campuses try to communicate with families on the different options of financial aid that are available.”
He said especially the middle-income groups aren’t aware of the financial aid opportunities for them.
“It’s something we need to continue to talk about,” Montera said.
For more information, visit cu.edu/affordability.