As the recession leaves the Colorado state budget increasingly less room for construction projects on college campuses, the state’s institutions of higher learning are coming up with more creative ways to fund these projects.
The state budget outlook is grim indeed; estimates for next year’s shortfall range from $1 to $1.7 billion. Federal stimulus dollars, which saved state funding for higher education operating expenses from the guillotine last year, expire in 2011, so higher education will return to the chopping block. A new law requires colleges and universities to provide the state with plans for how they would absorb a 50% funding cut.