CU president to speak on state funding cuts, campus growth

April 20, 2015

April Wefler
[email protected]

CU president Bruce Benson will speak on issues facing UCCS April 20 at 2 p.m. in Berger Hall.

Benson is giving a similar talk to other schools in the CU system, as part of his town hall meetings.

The talk is a general update on the university and focuses on topics such as the continued decrease in state funding and the rapid population growth of the student body.

One of the biggest issues facing the CU system is the decrease in state funding.

“If our budget goes down 10 or 15 percent, everybody’s going to take a hit. That’s including Colorado Springs,” Benson said. “We have to cut things back, plan things out and become more efficient.”

The lack of state funding could lead to an increase in tuition or a decrease in the amount of services that the university provides.

In addition to speaking on issues facing the CU system, Benson will also talk about some things happening with the campus.

He said that the CU School of Medicine is establishing a Colorado Springs branch for clinical training. According to the CU-Denver website, the move is estimated to be in 2016.

“It’s going to increase the size of our school of medicine,” Benson said.

He also said that CU is going to start delivering programs at the Colorado Wildlife Experience in Parker, Colo., as well as work on its online education.

Benson is pleased with the expansion of UCCS.

“There’s great stuff going on. The Lane Center is up and going, the Visual Arts Center is getting funded,” he said.

Other topics he will speak on include the campus’ marketing and media marketing, student loan debt and the growth in student population, which has been across all of the campuses, but some more drastic than others.

“The campuses are growing rapidly. Anschutz can’t because there’re restrictions about how many people can be in the classes,” Benson said.

“Denver is growing and UCCS is growing more.”