Underfunding the University of Colorado endangers future of state, school’s president writes.

Adecade ago, the iPhone was three years old. Uber and Airbnb had just started. Instagram launched. Tesla’s battery-powered Model S was two years away. Oh, how our world has changed in the past 10 years.

What will the coming decade bring? Will fully autonomous cars be commonplace? Will drones deliver packages? What must Colorado do to continue to prosper?

In some respects, change in the future will mirror change of the past, only at a faster, more disruptive pace. Advances in technology will continue to accelerate, as will the automation of many tasks. Some forecasts suggest nearly half of today’s jobs could be automated by 2030, nearly a third of workers will need to prepare for a new career, and almost everyone will need to be a lifelong learner to keep current.

Economic vitality will depend on new technologies and ventures emerging from research to replace jobs eliminated by automation. Increasingly, success of individuals, enterprises, states and nations will hinge on education and research. It’s no coincidence that those advances I mentioned above all emerged from California, home to the leading public university system ranked by research expenditures.

The University of Colorado system (with more than $1 billion annually in research) ranks among the top-10 public university systems in the nation in research expenditures. Among the factors the federal government undoubtedly considered in locating its new Space Force in Colorado was that CU is the top public university in NASA research funding. Ecosystems like the state enjoys in space — with its military bases, leading aerospace companies and CU complementing each other — will become more essential for economic success.

CU also is a national leader in health care and environmental research, other ecosystems vital to Colorado’s prosperity and to our nation’s and the planet’s future. The state benefits not just from the highly skilled workforce CU provides, but also from nearly 200 companies that have emerged from CU research.

Yet without a course correction, Colorado’s economic success is tenuous. Public funding for higher education in Colorado has not kept up, even accounting for last year’s generous increase (for which we are thankful). Colorado ranked 48th nationally in per-student funding a decade ago. It has the same ranking today. This has driven tuition up. The state’s commitment must be renewed.

Attracting nonresident students has helped some campuses mitigate the impact of this decline. But continuing to subsidize Colorado students with out-of-state tuition is increasingly risky. Nationwide, college enrollment has declined for nearly a decade. Colorado high school graduates will decline after 2025. Other states will fight harder to keep their students home.

When you combine low state support with competitive tuition, Colorado universities are among the most efficient of their peers. Yet low state funding constrains the financial aid and support services we can make available to meet the needs of tomorrow’s students, who increasingly are from under-represented minorities, low-income families and are the first generation in their families to attend college. The state also risks having its best talent poached by better-funded research universities in other states.

CU is undertaking a strategic plan to address Colorado’s needs and to lean into the future. It will allow us to embrace technology to support the success of an increasingly diverse student body, expand lifelong learning (including new forms of credentials), generate breakthrough discoveries, enhance support for mental health, expand online offerings and streamline degree pathways with partner colleges.

Recently, Virginia committed to investing $1.1 billion to produce 25,000 to 35,000 additional graduates in computer science and engineering fields over the coming 20 years. While all degrees are important, engineering degrees cost significantly more to deliver. Student demand is there, as we see with a growing share of CU’s graduates on our campuses and our engineering collaborations with Colorado Mesa and Western Colorado University. For Colorado to have the talent and discovery that the future demands, it needs to renew its support for higher education, follow the paths of states like Virginia and invest in our future. Doing so will let us look back a decade from now at one of the wisest investments we ever made.