The University of Colorado Boulder is expecting a significant decline in international students this fall, despite projecting a record-high number of students overall.

This fall, the campus is predicting an enrollment increase of 2.7% overall but is anticipating a 24.3% decline in undergraduate international students and a 14.7% decline in graduate international students.

“That’s what the campus is observing with foreign students associated with uncertainty and the political climate we’re in and challenges in terms of obtaining visas to study abroad,” CU System Chief Financial Officer Chad Marturano said.Marturano presented a budget update to the University of Colorado Board of Regents on Wednesday at the board’s regular meeting in Colorado Springs. The update included enrollment projections for this fall and the next few years, along with state and federal funding updates.

This year’s budget assumes a flat rate of federal funding with no increases in federal research awards, despite an 8.7% increase in average annual research expenditures historically.

“In this year’s budget, as we’re looking to fiscal year 2025-2026, we are budgeting conservatively on our federal funds, in particular our research awards,” Marturano said. “We’re doing that because it’s a changing environment and we want to plan in a prudent manner.”

There are more than 5,800 federal grants researchers are working on at CU, including 2,100 at CU Boulder. CU Boulder is monitoring the number of research awards and grants that have been terminated or affected by stop-work orders issued by the Trump administration. More than 50 awards have been affected, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in losses.

The university is planning to help researchers who have been affected by providing limited funds as they’re available, Marturano said.

“When campuses can, they’re planning to utilize some bridge funding for those researchers that are adversely impacted,” he said.

Retention drives increase

In-state graduate student enrollment is projected to increase by 3.9% this fall, but overall graduate enrollment is expected to decrease by 4.5% due to a decline in out-of-state students.

Despite expected decreases in international students and graduate students, predictions of the number of total students that will enroll at CU Boulder this fall have increased in the last two months.

“Boulder is actually up, increasing 2.7%, versus what we had assumed in April, which was 1.4%,” Marturano said.

Enrollment numbers are finalized within the first few weeks of the fall semester. Marturano said the increase is due to retention rather than a larger new cohort of students.

“It’s being driven by an increase in undergraduate enrollment of 4.1%,” he said. “But that is because resident undergraduate (students are) increasing by 5%, and that’s primarily due to student retention.”

CU Boulder’s total budget for the upcoming year is $2.61 billion, with $126.7 million, or 4.9%, coming from state funding. The overall CU budget for the campuses and system is $6.7 billion, with $365.5 million, or 5.5%, coming from state funding.

Marturano also shared five-year enrollment projections. Last fall at CU Boulder, enrollment hit an all-time high of 38,428 students. This fall, the university is projecting a new record of about 39,448 students. In the following years, the enrollment projections are 39,096 students, 39,040 students, 38,955 students and 38,986 students, which would be the fiscal year 2029 to 2030 projection.

“This is our forecast,” Marturano said. “Is this perfectly right? Probably not, but it’s a reasonable proxy of where we think folks will be, and we’ll use this to inform our out-year budget planning.”

In April, the Board of Regents approved a 3.5% tuition increase for new, in-state undergraduate students and a 2.3% tuition increase for out-of-state students and graduate students for the 2025-2026 fiscal year.

Existing students do not see tuition increases due to CU Boulder’s four-year tuition guarantee. Pay increases will also be implemented for faculty, staff and student workers.

For more information, visit tinyurl.com/CUregentinfo.