What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$14,231 to $34,818 a year for in-state students, depending on income.
College Scorecard 2024 estimate · in-state rates
See the price at your income ↑Sticker price
Full cost before aid: $37,684 a year in-state. Average need-based aid package: $23,502.Aid and debt
$29,123
average debt at graduation
12,246
students got merit aid
about 36% of undergraduates
$11,041
average merit award
Not reported by this school: share receiving need-based grants.
Getting In
A note for out-of-state applicants
University of Colorado Boulder is bound by multiple overlapping Colorado enrollment ceilings — separate limits for its incoming class, its overall enrollment, and its international students. If you're applying from outside Colorado, these combined limits may affect your odds in ways the admit rate above doesn't show.
Per C.R.S. §23-1-113.5.
Key dates
Test scores
SAT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 1130–1370 · 27% of the class submitted
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 27–32 · 6% of the class submitted
26.3% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What they value
- Very important
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- GPA
- Important
- Personal essay
- Recommendations
- Extracurriculars
- Special talent
- Character
- Considered
- Class rank
- SAT/ACT scores
- First-gen status
- Where you're from
- In-state residency
- Volunteer work
- Work experience
- Demonstrated interest
- Not considered
- Legacy status
What this means for you
CU Boulder rates course rigor as Very Important, and your essay, your recommendations, and your activities as Important.
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Rigor means AP, IB, and dual enrollment carry real weight — make sure your mix of AP or IB courses is strong. A strong essay can differentiate an otherwise average application. Recommendations matter here too — a recommender who knows you well helps. And depth and leadership in a few activities matter more than a long list.
CU Boulder rates demonstrated interest 'Considered' — it can tip a close decision, without being decisive.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section C7 (admissions factors)
CU Boulder just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-CU Boulder essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
39.6% of CU Boulder classes have fewer than 20 students.
39.6%
under 20 students
39.9%
20 to 49
20.5%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. CU Boulder CDS 2025–26, I-3.
20:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
42.9%
first-years from out of state
26%
live on campus
9%
of men in fraternities
22%
of women in sororities
Who attends
- White66.4%
- Hispanic14.1%
- Multiracial7.2%
- Asian6.4%
- Black2.2%
- Unknown / other1.1%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. CU Boulder CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
57.5% of CU Boulder students graduate in 4 years.
57.5%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2019
74%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2019
91.2%
return after first year
Finishing late means paying for extra semesters, so the 4-year rate is the one that shows the cost.
Students with Pell Grants
65% finish in 6 years, against 74% of all students.
A 9-point gap: Pell Grant students finish less often than students overall.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Boulder.
Boulder is a small, expensive, unusually outdoorsy city that would exist without the university but is thoroughly shaped by it.
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The campus runs up against open space on one side and Pearl Street's pedestrian mall on the other, so the walk between a lecture and a trailhead is genuinely short. The trade-off is cost and scale: this is one of the priciest rental markets in the Mountain West, which is part of why 74% of undergraduates live off campus and why housing is the thing upperclassmen talk about most. Denver is close enough to be the pressure-release valve for anything Boulder is too small to offer.
The City
Mid-size city
Boulder, CO
Best For
Notable alumni
Notable Alumni
Byron White
Served 31 years as a US Supreme Court Justice before retiring in 1993. He was student body president, class valedictorian, an all-American athlete and a Rhodes Scholar here, and CU's own 150th-anniversary list of notable graduates opens with him.
Class of 1938
Scott Carpenter
One of the original Mercury Seven astronauts and the second American to orbit the Earth, in 1962. He studied aeronautical engineering here around the turn of the 1950s, and later became the only person to be both an astronaut and an aquanaut.
Kalpana Chawla
The first woman born in India to fly in space, and a mission specialist on two Space Shuttle flights. She earned her aerospace engineering doctorate here in 1988 and died aboard Columbia in 2003; a CU scholarship and a campus memorial carry her name.
Class of 1988
Sarah Gillis
A SpaceX engineer who in 2024 became the youngest person to perform a spacewalk, on the Polaris Dawn mission. She trained as an aerospace engineer here — the most recent name on CU's own list of notable graduates.
Matt Stone
Co-creator of South Park, which he began making with Trey Parker while the two were students here. He took a double degree in mathematics and film in 1993; their first animated short was made in Boulder.
Class of 1993
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
Traditions
Traditions
Ralphie's Run
A live buffalo sprints the length of Folsom Field ahead of the football team, handled by a student crew who train for the job. The buffalo was chosen as the mascot through a student newspaper competition in 1934.
Conference on World Affairs
A week-long festival of free public panels running every year since 1948, where visiting writers, scientists and politicians are deliberately mixed into unlikely combinations. Students can walk into any of it without a ticket.
Colorado Shakespeare Festival
A professional repertory festival formally established in 1958 and staged on campus each summer, one of the longest-running Shakespeare festivals in the country.
The Flatirons backdrop
The sandstone slabs directly above campus are the university's unofficial landmark and its most-used recreation, with trailheads within walking distance of class.
Weekend escapes from Boulder
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Boulder
Rocky Mountain National Park
About 1 hourAlpine hiking, wildlife and the Trail Ridge Road high country — close enough to be an ordinary Saturday rather than a planned trip.
Denver
About 45 minutes, or a direct busConcerts, professional sport, museums and the airport. The Flatiron Flyer bus runs frequently, so a car is not required.
Winter Park and the I-70 ski corridor
1.5 to 2 hoursThe nearest cluster of major ski areas, reachable for a day trip and the reason many students own a season pass.
Getting there and game days
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Denver International (DEN)
About 50 minutes from campus
Flies international — you can start a trip abroad from here.
Pro sports nearby
- Denver Broncos NFL
- Denver Nuggets NBA
- Colorado Avalanche NHL
- Colorado Rockies MLB
Internships and jobs nearby
Career Proximity
Boulder is a genuine employer in its own right rather than a commuter suburb — federal science labs, aerospace firms and a dense startup scene sit in town or just down US 36, with Denver's broader job market 45 minutes away.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- National Institute of Standards and Technology
- National Center for Atmospheric Research
- Ball Aerospace
- Lockheed Martin Space
- Google Boulder
Denver — about 45 minutes by car, with frequent direct bus service
Who thrives here
Who Thrives Here
CU Boulder admits 70.7% of applicants, so getting in is rarely the hard part — the hard parts are finishing and paying. 91.2% come back for a second year and 74.0% graduate within six, but only 57.5% finish in four, and a fifth year at $44,748 out-of-state is a real line item rather than a footnote. Aid covers 72% of need and graduates who borrow leave with $29,123. What makes the place distinct is the geography and how the campus organises around it: the Flatirons sit at the edge of the grounds, and 74% of undergraduates live off campus, so the default is a bike or a bus to a house in Boulder rather than a dorm floor. Greek life is a minority option — 9% of men and 22% of women — which suits a student who wants their social life built around the outdoors instead. The academic culture leans research and space science: this is the only university to have sent instruments to every planet in the solar system, and its alumni include three astronauts. Classes are large for it, with 39.6% of sections under 20 and a 20-to-1 ratio, so a student who needs to be known by name has to go find that themselves.