Senior Vice Chancellor and CFO Kelly Fox
Over the past year, I have written several times about higher education being in a place of unprecedented change. As we lean in to this changing world, we are working to build resiliency across the institution by making internal investments grounded in areas we value—our people, our infrastructure and our future. CU Boulder is academically and fiscally sound, and we are budgeting to keep it that way.
At the February Board of Regents meeting, we presented planned key investments—enrollment growth, compensation, academic innovation and the course and program fee buyout. We shared our planned investments in our faculty and staff through our compensation initiative, which addresses instructor faculty salary compression, graduate student teaching faculty stipends, front-line service worker salaries and more.
We also continue to invest in our students—and by extension the future of our institution—through our commitment to provide an affordable education. This includes our tuition guarantees for undergraduates, our ongoing investment in need- and merit-based financial aid and, in this year’s budget, the elimination of course and program fees in fall 2018.
No longer charging these fees to our students will provide greater transparency of costs and predictability for our students and their families. We have allocated 10.3 million dollars from next year’s new revenues to fund continuing budget, which will replace these previously temporary funds.
We also presented budget plans for a strategic set of investments in academic innovation at our institution, further building our infrastructure and providing for our future. From new tools to supporting programs like Veteran’s Services and the Graduate School, we are building our resiliency and our inclusive excellence by investing in what we value.
We are also investing in the campus’s future by planning for enrollment growth. Our 2018–19 budget includes funding for our colleges and schools to meet the needs of growing programs, as well as costs related to instruction, advising and unit-based support of more students.
Want an inside look at how CU Boulder is financed and the challenges and opportunities we face as an institution? Join Kelly Fox and Carla Ho-a, associate vice chancellor for finance and business strategy, for Coffee and the Campus Budget on April 19, April 25 or April 26.
Across the university, we are examining how we spend our money and looking for ways we can reinvest in our mission. Our goal is that every dollar is being used for the best and highest purpose. Associate Vice Chancellor Carla Ho-a and her team are creating a working group with representatives from across the university to study how we cover our mandatory costs and expand our budget flexibility.
We invite all members of our community to engage in this shared-values process we call budgeting. Examine the wealth of resources available to you on the Budget & Fiscal Planning website, join one of the many campus conversations that are focusing on the future of our institution or attend a Coffee and the Campus Budget session, where we discuss our fiscal and forecast models.
Share your insights, deepen your understanding or bring questions to the table—and help us build a resilient future for our institution.
With regard,
Kelly Fox,
Senior Vice Chancellor and CFO
