I've always thought that the closest comparison to Colorado is Washington. Similar in terms of being in a cool state with similar academic ranks/priorities.
They're a bigger school by about 25% on enrollment when comparing main campuses, with almost all of it being in post-graduates (about 4k more undergrads, but 9k more post-grads). For the entire system, CU actually has about 7k more total students.
They do things better in a lot of ways, and give a blueprint for where CU needs to go. Their system-wide endowment is almost $3 billion compared to CU at a little over $1 billion, which points the way for CU on the importance of driving the post-grad programs and fundraising efforts. Their main campus is actually a little smaller, but they have built it out (786 acres for CU, 703 acres for UW). On sports, our successes are similar in football and basketball but they've achieved a bit more in their history. In non-revenue sports, they have more going on and their other programs are a notch above CU.
Anyway, I look at Washington and say that this is what CU should be. I would even say that although our home recruiting grounds aren't as good as they have, the fact that we're in the middle of the country and can recruit Texas, midwestern metros and even the east coast more easily than they can puts CU in a better position to field great teams. The key to it all, I believe, is driving up the endowment numbers and the overall fundraising efforts. There doesn't seem to be a donor culture at CU like there is at other places. That's why the move to the Pac-12 was such a big deal because that's where so many of the alumni live. It's also why expanding the conference with schools from Texas would have a big impact for CU since that's our #2 state for alums (other than CO).
Here are the Pac-12 endowment ranks:
- Stanford ($22.398B)
- USC ($4.609B)
- Cal ($4.405B)
- UCLA ($3.530B)
- Washington ($2.968B)
- Utah ($1.077B)
- Colorado ($1.063B)
- Washington State ($0.908B)
- Oregon ($0.759B)
- Arizona ($0.755B)
- Arizona State ($0.613B)
- Oregon State ($0.550B)
To give an idea of how well the Texas schools are endowed:
- Texas A&M ($9.754B)
- Texas ($3.642B)
- Texas Christian ($1.514B)
- SMU ($1.505B)
- Texas Tech ($1.195B)
- Houston ($0.716B)
We need those Texas donors to feel attached to CU and motivated to participate in the arms race for athletics and research bragging rights.
Even getting into Oklahoma plays to that with OU $1.520B at and OSU at $0.904B.
I think it's great that RG has been pushing his drive to get the Athletic Department endowment to over $100 million. That should be driven to twice that. And the university as a whole should be making a push for $2 billion. It's very achievable and with better leadership is a very realistic goal.
For the athletics department, it would also be a huge deal to continue increasing the student population. Can CU get it to 45k students on the main campus by building out the South Campus, finishing the East Campus and by re-imagining the acreage used for its family housing on Main Campus (maybe turning that into a university village)? Absolutely.
I believe that CU has incredible potential to be elite.