This story was originally published on the CU Independent.
On Nov. 5, Coloradans across the state will vote on the three newest members of the University of Colorado Board of Regents, the governing body of the state’s largest university system, with campuses in Boulder, Denver, Aurora and Colorado Springs.
The two main party candidates for the single statewide seat, Democrat Elliott Hood and Republican Eric Rinard, plan to address issues impacting CU students and faculty — such as affordability, gun policy, mental health and protest rights.
Besides setting university-wide policies, the regents’ main role is to manage CU’s $6.2 billion budget. Of this, roughly $1.3 billion comes from student tuition, the rates of which the regents ultimately approve. In April, the sitting Board of Regents approved an increase in tuition for the 2024–2025 academic year. The increase applied to students attending all four campuses, except continuing students on the Boulder campus, who receive a four-year tuition guarantee.
Hood, a Chicago-raised education attorney and former teacher, has focused his campaign on making CU more affordable. This includes addressing the debt many recent college graduates face.
Students who graduate from the CU system with a bachelor’s degree owe an average of $26,000 to nearly $30,000 in student loan debt, according to a 2022 Colorado Department of Higher Education study.
Hood said that if elected, during his six-year term on the board, he would aim to cut the average debt load of CU graduates in half or eliminate it entirely. One way to do this, he says, is by managing tuition increases.
“You have to keep tuition in check, so you don’t raise it every year by a massive percent,” he said. “You have to make sure that you’re doing it only rarely and that you’re keeping it in line with just the cost of doing business and inflation.”
Hood also said debt loads can be lowered by building more affordable, university-owned housing options.
“If you want to go live on the Hill or if you’re at CU Denver and you want to go live in Denver in a private apartment, that’s your choice, but we should at least be providing the opportunity to have lower-cost housing,” he said.
Hood pointed to two areas that CU Boulder plans to develop into affordable student or faculty housing — the controversial CU South property and a former movie theater off U.S. 36 that CU Boulder purchased in May. The latter, he said, will be turned into affordable faculty housing.
Rinard, a Colorado-raised engineer who attended CU Boulder as an in-state student, said he would prioritize managing the cost of tuition for Colorado residents, even at the expense of out-of-state students.
“I think that the market can withstand a higher cost for those people that want to come from out of state,” he said. “You’re selecting from a much more high-wealth class of applicant then, but that’s to the benefit of the university and the in-state students. I think that’s the free market at work.”
Rinard also said he would push for the four-year tuition guarantee offered at CU Boulder, which guarantees students pay the same rates from freshman to senior year, to be extended to CU’s other campuses. Hood has also said he would support this.
Campus safety
In May, a Colorado law was passed prohibiting concealed carry in certain “sensitive” places, including universities. The current CU policy on concealed carry, updated in June, says the regents will follow state law.
However, this means the policy on CU’s campus is subject to change at the discretion of state lawmakers.
Hood says he considers gun violence a “scourge on our civilization.” He says he would push to enshrine a concealed carry ban in CU policy.
“I want our policies to say unequivocally that you cannot bring a loaded weapon onto our campuses unless you are a law enforcement officer or someone who’s a security officer that’s trained and certified to carry a firearm,” Hood said. “My position is: nobody needs a gun. It’s dangerous and incredibly disruptive.”
Rinard opposes a ban on concealed carry.
He recalled a quote from a favorite author that he agrees with: “An armed society is a polite society.”
He referred to a recent instance of gun violence on one of CU’s campuses — the shooting at the Colorado Springs campus in February.
“It was very unfortunate, the shooting that happened on the [Colorado Springs] campus,” Rinard said. “I don’t think that necessarily would have been prevented by banning concealed carry.”
Rinard says he opposes “mandates and prohibitions.” This, he explained, means he largely disapproves of any university policy that he feels infringes on personal freedoms, including the right to bear arms.
Rinard also said he disagrees with a Denver Post editorial that argues CU policy should more explicitly prohibit tenured faculty from “pursuing or having sex with anyone enrolled as a student at the university.”
He said this is an example of a “prohibition on personal behavior,” which he opposes.
“As a father, I’m concerned about that,” he said. “But at the same time, what are you going to do? You’re going to strip someone of tenure because they send a text message?”
Rinard said that existing university policies against rape and harassment protect individuals on campus from others. He opposes what the Denver Post editorial proposed because he views it as a protection from oneself.
“If you’re protecting someone from their own choices, then I would oppose that,” he said.
Campus mental health care programs
When asked what they see as one of the biggest issues facing CU students today, both candidates answered mental health.
In recent years, experts have identified a mental health crisis on college campuses, with one study finding a majority of college students met the criteria for at least one mental health problem. The candidates disagreed on how to combat this concern.
Hood said he would support expanding CU Boulder’s Counseling and Psychiatric Services (CAPS) program to include more free sessions for students. Currently, students are eligible for six free sessions each academic year.
“The CAPS program is really important,” he said. “So when we’re looking at our budgeting for the whole university, and I’m looking at the line item for mental health services, I’m going to be asking whether we can expand access to more sessions for students so that they can get the care that they need.”
Rinard said expanding programs like CAPS may lead to tuition increases, which he opposes.
Instead, he proposed implementing a “campus buddy” system, where incoming freshmen are introduced to an upperclassman who will act as a guide or “friend on campus.” He said a program like this would have helped him during his time at CU Boulder.
Campus protests in the wake of Israel-Hamas war
Over the last year, students at universities across the country have taken to their campuses to protest the Israel-Hamas war. CU is no exception.
Some CU students have pressured the university system to divest from companies operating in Israel, including through encampments on the Auraria campus last May.
Both candidates said they support protests on campus until a certain point.
Hood said protests should be permitted on campus, so long as they do not disrupt classes and follow all time, place and manner restrictions. Rinard said “no encampments, no takeovers, no blockades would be permitted” if he were elected.
Faculty, staff unions
Currently, Colorado law prohibits most higher education employees from collectively bargaining or forming officially recognized unions. A small portion of campus employees, considered “classified workers,” can join Colorado Workers for Innovative and New Solutions, a union that represents state employees.
CU workers who do not fall under this category can join United Campus Workers Colorado, an unrecognized union that has advocated for higher wages and better working conditions for many of CU’s faculty and staff.
Hood said all university employees should have the right to unionize.
“I believe [unionization is] the most effective way to collectively advocate for better pay and benefits and also to work with the university to ensure that they know what employees need,” Hood said.
Rinard called his opponent’s policy a “mistake.” He said unionizing may lead to increased costs for the university, which could, in turn, drive up tuition.
“I think it’s a mistake for multiple reasons,” he said. “It would make the university community subject to threats of work stoppages, and it is a distortion of the free market in employment at CU.”
With early voting just beginning, students, faculty and other Colorado residents will have the chance to cast their votes for the next regent at-large. The two candidates, supporting different policies and holding different priorities for the university system, will both appear on the ballot.