Colorado adjusts higher education funding and student aid rules

The commission, department, and governing boards calculate results-informed funding for each governing board using changes in institutional performance. The calculation covers state institutions of higher education and uses enrollment, completions, student populations, retention, graduation, and first-generation student measures. The Joint Budget Committee determines how much funding is assigned to each measure after considering the commission's budget recommendations. Each governing board's share uses four years of actual data compared with the three oldest years within that four-year period. The total distributed through each measure cannot exceed the amount assigned to that measure. Sections 1 through 3 take effect August 1, 2026, and apply to state institution budgets beginning in state fiscal year 2027-28.

The department ensures consistent data reporting, and students in qualifying co-located degree partnerships are left out of the two graduation-rate groups used for funding calculations. A qualifying partnership requires a written agreement, a student who starts a degree at a home institution that cannot offer it to completion, a transfer to a partner institution, and continued primary location at the home campus for a period set by the agreement. The partnership must include instruction or services at the home campus, such as academic services, library access, or student support. Ordinary transfer agreements, general transfer partnerships, course sharing, online-only arrangements, and dual enrollment without campus co-location do not qualify. The degree must not already be offered to completion at the student's home institution. The exclusion applies when the department calculates the one-hundred-percent-of-time and one-hundred-fifty-percent-of-time graduation-rate cohorts under the funding provisions.

The commission does not allocate money to certain private institutions for their students under a commission financial-assistance program. The restriction covers nonpublic, private, and proprietary institutions of higher education. The restriction applies to money allocated under a financial-assistance program established by the commission under the cited law. The restriction applies during state fiscal year 2026-27 and is repealed effective July 1, 2028.

The commission does not allocate work-study money to certain private institutions for their students. The restriction covers nonpublic, private, and proprietary institutions of higher education participating in the state work-study program. The restriction applies to money allocated for students under the work-study program established by the cited law. The restriction applies during state fiscal year 2026-27 and is repealed effective July 1, 2028.