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Nexus Policy Group
2025 Legislative Report

• Colorado lawmakers gave final approval to a $43.9 billion state budget in the form of Senate Bill 206, the annual Long Bill sponsored by the JBC. In addition to SB 25-206, the full budget package included over 60 companion bills, which were mostly bills to cut statutory programs. This year鈥檚 budget reflects a challenging fiscal landscape marked by rising health care and education costs, a growing Medicaid burden, and constraints of TABOR.   
  
  
• The JBC was able to protect Higher Education funding. The budget included a modest 2.5% increase in operating support for institutions of Higher Education, which amounts to roughly $39 million including funding for financial aid. This was higher than the Governor鈥檚 original $12 million request for all of higher education. Institutions are also able to raise tuition by up to 3.5% to cover expenses.   
  
  
• While UNC did not have a proactive legislative agenda, as in recent year鈥檚 with the bill to establish the School of Osteopathic medicine, it was a big year in terms of responding to numerous proposals that would have added significant workload and cost to the university., including: 
  • Senate Bill 87, introduced by Senator Janice Marchman and Representative Rebekah Stewart.  This bill will require each institution of higher education to create and adopt a policy and a process to support the ability of prospective, admitted or enrolled students with a disability to self-disclose upon their own volition their disability. Once they self-disclose their disability, the beforementioned policy would provide the steps for them to engage in an interactive process with the institution to receive an academic adjustment. The bill was heavily amended in the Senate and the House to address the concerns of the institutions and ensure that there were not duplicative processes for students with disabilities that institutions had to comply with at the state and federal level.  

• • House Bill 1038, introduced early in the legislative session by the Department of Higher Education. The department sought to create a website, a one-stop shop, for current and prospective higher education students to access timely information on which credits, courses, work-related experiences, and prior learning opportunities are transferable to or between institutions. The intention was to have mandatory participation of each public institution. Upon introduction, the public institutions of higher education universally questioned the fiscal note, lack of appropriation for institutions, and whether this would be better than the current situation. Institutions of higher education have access to real-time information and can update their websites instantaneously as new courses come online and transfer agreements are made. Through intense negotiations and lobbying the bill was amended to make the website optional for institutions.   

• • House Bill 25-1192 was sponsored by Representatives Jennifer Bacon and Anthony Hartsook and Senators Jeff Bridges and Lisa Frizell. The bill sought to create a new graduation requirement for high school students where they would be required to complete a course in financial literacy. The introduced bill also required submission of a free application for federal student aid or a Colorado application for state financial aid as a condition of high school graduation. HB 1192 ran into steep opposition when heard in the Senate Education Committee. Faced with potential failure, the bill sponsors worked to save the bill by offering a strike below amendment which dramatically altered the bill. Under the new version, starting in the 2027-28 school year, schools will be required to include in student鈥檚 individual career and academic plan a requirement that students be exposed to financial aid eligibility tools. Schools must also ensure that students can practice filling out a federal and state financial aid application. With these changes, the bill passed the full senate with bipartisan support.  

• • House Bill 1186, introduced by the Chair and Vice Chair of the House Education Committee, Representatives Martinez and Lukens, was initiated by the Department of Higher Education with the goal of creating a work-based learning consortium pilot program. Institutions of higher education were not involved in the drafting of the bill and were unaware of it until it was introduced. Once introduced, institutions expressed concerns with the narrow focus and lack of inclusion for all institutions in the pilot program. The bill was heavily amended throughout the process by the institutions of higher education to ensure the pilot program would demonstrate the value of work-based learning, promote adoption of work-based learning in higher education through working with faculty at participating institutions, and provide greater access to collegiate work-based learning opportunities for students. HB 1186 requires the department to measure the impact of work-based learning on participating students and provide insights into how institutions involved with the three-year pilot program can increase the value of the postsecondary experience through career exposure and preparedness. The bill was amended to specifically state that only upon receipt of sufficient funds will the department convene a consortium of participating institutions, members of the Commission on Higher Education, members of the Department of Labor and Employment and a member of CDE, along with a local or national subject matter expert on work-based learning. The consortium will be tasked with working with faculty to implement work-based learning opportunities and curriculum into their quality standards, advise the commission on strategies to improve student access to high-quality work based-learning opportunities, and develop best practices for institutions to expand access to such opportunities, among other objectives. The department is required to complete a report, subject to available appropriations, detailing the results of the pilot program and recommendations for how to expand in the future.