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CCHE urges formula tweaks as higher-education leaders press for modeling and transparency
Summary
CCHE presented a five-year funding-formula review and recommended renaming/reordering levers, changing the "role-in-mission" stabilizer to "previous share," and several metric refinements. Community college and technical-college leaders warned that the governor's proposed distribution could reduce funding for large systems that educate most undergraduates and urged JBC to model the proposal's institution-level impacts.
The Colorado Commission on Higher Education summarized a months-long stakeholder process to review the state's IHE funding formula. Chair Jen Walmer described working-group agreement on several structural and definitional changes: rename the existing "steps" as policy "levers," relabel the "role-in-mission" factor as "previous share" for transparency, and adopt metric refinements that better recognize partnerships, transfers and part-time students.
The commission asked policymakers to consider routing a portion of new funds through a different lever than the current performance-led step 2. Commission and department staff modeled an illustrative $10.6 million increment and showed that, under the current step-2 allocation, some rural institutions that have made performance gains could nevertheless face reductions because a "previous share" stabilizer preserves prior-year shares; routing the incremental money through step 1 avoided those cuts in the model presented.
Several campus and system leaders testified in turn. Colorado Community College System Chancellor Marielena DeSanctis and Colorado Mountain College President Matt Gianneshi said CCCS serves roughly 130,000 students and warned the governor's distribution approach could produce a net funding reduction for their system while other governing boards gain. CCCS asked the committee to consider allocation approaches that reflect scale and enrollment.
Area technical colleges and local district colleges also testified. Emily Griffith, Technical College of the Rockies and Pickens Tech highlighted high completion, placement rates and large wait lists; the ATCs urged targeted capacity and capital funding, not blunt cuts, because expanding credential seats produces high ROI for the state's workforce needs.
Committee members pressed for transparent, institution-level modeling. CDHE staff agreed to provide runs that compare the current formula and the commission's proposed refinements on a recent year (CDHE said it could deliver institutional-level modeling within about two weeks) so lawmakers can see how specific institutions would be affected by a given allocation amount and distribution method.
What happens next: CCHE's recommendations are advisory; any statutory change would require legislation. JBC requested CDHE follow-up runs that model the commission's proposed metric changes and show the effect of a $10.6M allocation routed by different levers.
