The four-year graduation rate at the University of Colorado Boulder was 59.2% in fiscal year 2024, up from 57.5% the year prior.

The university met its annual progress goal for increasing the four-year graduation rate, and its long-term goal for 2026 is to reach a 63% four-year graduation rate.

Graduation rate is one of the metrics tracked for each CU campus as part of the CU System’s strategic plan. The strategic plan was enacted in 2021 to guide the university into the future. It’s a five-year plan that contains themes and measurable goals for 2026 surrounding student retention and graduation rates, research funding, diversity, equity and inclusion and fundraising.

CU System Chief Financial Officer Chad Marturano presented the university’s mid-year update on its strategic plan to the University of Colorado Board of Regents during its winter retreat on Friday.

Marturano reported that the six-year graduation rate at CU Boulder was 74.1% compared to 74.9% the year prior. The university did not meet its annual progress goal, and its strategic plan goal is to hit an 81% six-year graduation rate by 2026.

The university also tracks the four-and-six-year graduation rates for underrepresented minority students, including Hispanic, Black, American Indian, and Pacific Islander students.

CU Boulder’s four-year graduation rate for minority students was 46.3% in fiscal year 2024, and the six-year graduation rate was 67.5%. The university’s goal is to reach a 55% four-year graduation rate and a 78% six-year graduation rate by 2026. The university did not meet its annual progress goal for either metric last year.

“We’re a little bit lower and it was a more challenging year for (underrepresented minority) students at Boulder,” Marturano said.

He hopes targeted efforts to improve minority retention rates will change this trend.

CU Boulder Chancellor Justin Schwartz pointed out that those students began their college careers during the pandemic, which disproportionately affected first-generation students, low-income students and minority students for whom building community is critical.

Marturano said the pandemic was one contributing factor to the lower rates. Regent Mark VanDriel said he’d like to see data on how peer institutions did in this area to understand if CU Boulder was an outlier or part of a larger pattern.

The university also tracks freshmen retention rates for their first year at CU Boulder. From the fall of 2023 to the fall of 2024, CU Boulder retained 90.2% of its overall freshmen class and 85.7% of its freshmen from minority backgrounds. The 2026 goals are to have a 96% overall freshmen retention rate and a 94% freshmen retention rate for minority students.

CU Boulder has reached its annual progress goal toward the percentage of new minority students and new military students. In the fall of 2024, 21.7% of new students were from minority backgrounds and 1.3% had a military affiliation. The university aims to have 25% of new students be of minority background and 4% with a military affiliation by 2026.

CU Boulder has reached 56% of its annual goal for research awards and gifts in the first five months of the year. It’s raised $391.1 million so far and has a goal to reach $800 million in 2026. It’s also reached 61%, or $96 million, of its goal halfway through the year for other gifts and fundraising. The 2026 goal is to reach $192 million.

The university has surpassed its 2026 goal of increasing total revenue per employee, subtracting state funding and undergraduate in-state tuition. It reached $234 million and its 2026 goal was $208 million.

The existing strategic plan will end in June of 2026. The university has started planning the development of a strategic plan 2.0 that will begin once the existing one concludes.

“We’re calling it strategic plan 2.0 because we’re not throwing away everything we’ve done before, but using 1.0 to inform our 2.0 while tightening up our reign and focus,” UCCS Interim Provost Lynn Vidler said.

CU is starting to form the strategic plan working group, which will include Vidler and Marturano as the two co-chairs. The group will be comprised of the CU System Associate Vice President of Internal Audit Agnessa Vartanova and three representatives from each CU campus. The university also plans to use artificial intelligence to assist in the planning process.

“This is an innovative experiment we hope you will support as we see how we can leverage ChatGPT to manage all the data and feedback,” Vidler said.

The strategic plan working group will gather feedback from within the university and conduct an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It will generate themes and a framework for the next plan, including metrics to measure progress.

CU President Todd Saliman said he’s looking forward to the opportunity to take a fresh look at the plan.

“I’m really excited for this because the current plan has definitely been a useful tool for us,” he said, adding, “But we’ve learned so much about how we can do it differently to try and advance the university even more.”