For the 2026–2027 academic year, the estimated cost of attendance at Colorado College is set at $99,605 when factoring in tuition, room, board and mandatory health insurance.
Direct charges alone, which include $73,038 for tuition and $16,664 for housing and food, push the baseline past $90,000. While the college meets 100% of demonstrated financial need, many aid packages include a “Student Contribution” expectation of $2,500.
Meanwhile, student workers at CC earn $15.16 per hour, which matches the Colorado state minimum wage. Earning the $2,500 personal expense contribution at this rate requires 165 hours of labor annually.
This disconnect has sparked a growing conversation among student employees on campus: how does the value of student labor at CC compare to the rising cost of the education itself?
In contrast, the University of Denver operates under a different market reality. The private Denver college of 12,894 students must adhere to the City of Denver’s minimum wage of $19.29, though they choose to start student workers at $19.50 per hour. Consequently, a DU student earns that same $2,500 in just 128 hours.
Despite CC’s tuition being nearly $10,000 higher than DU’s, a student at DU earns $4.34 more per hour than a student doing the same work at CC.
Kavyia Chidambaram ‘27, a CC student with four campus jobs, shared her opinion regarding the difference.
“Colorado College prides itself on being one of the most innovative schools in the nation… but it’s clear Colorado College student workers are being undervalued,” she said. “Why attend or work at CC if the school itself believes its student labor is worth only the bare legal minimum? Or, if you’re lucky, the bare minimum, plus 40 cents.”
Roger Lane, assistant vice president and director of student financial services at CC, provided an institutional perspective on this disparity. Lane said that CC invests more than $1 million of its own institutional funds into its student employment program, noting that the college receives less federal and state work-study support than institutions like DU.
“A place like DU is getting a lot more support from federal and state dollars for their students; we are investing a lot of our institutional funds, whether that’s endowment returns or tuition dollars,” said Lane.
Lane emphasized that the college views employment as an educational investment rather than a primary income source.
“I don’t know that the college looks at student employment to be the primary way that students are paying for CC,” Lane said.
He suggested that the high participation rate, with more than 50% of the student body holding on-campus jobs, indicates that students find value beyond a paycheck.
“We offer enhanced networking, on-the-job skills that you may not get otherwise… the fact that over half choose to work each year suggests that these jobs are significant beyond a paycheck every two weeks,” Lane said.
Lane also explained budgetary constraints regarding the current wage floor. He described student salaries as a “non-rounding error” on the college budget, saying that any increase in pay would likely necessitate higher tuition.
“Anything that would increase the cost of the student employment program is looked at really judiciously because we do want to minimize the impact to tuition dollars,” Lane said. “If we increase the student salaries, we’d have to fund that with tuition.”
Lane characterized a 2.4% increase in the student employment budget this year as a deliberate investment, nearly matching the raises given to faculty and staff. From the administration’s view, the $15.16 wage is a balanced decision.
“We’ve done our best to invest a similar rate of additional funds each year into student employment for the last two years,” Lane noted. “It’s a market reality with the goal of keeping it as open access as we can.”
Colorado College utilizes a two-tier system where “Tier II” advanced and specialized roles earn only 40 cents more than entry-level and intermediate positions. DU, by comparison, offers a four-tier scale that gives each level of experience its own pay grade starting at $19.50 and reaching up to $21 per hour for specialized work.
“We have done our best to balance both recognizing and rewarding autonomy and responsibility in roles with the fact that we also want this program to support as many student employees as possible,” Lane said regarding the tier system.
The result of this choice is that a specialized student leader at CC earns $5.34 less per hour than a peer in a similar role at DU.
The reality of these wages is most visible in the time crunch of life on the Block Plan. Because CC compresses a semester’s worth of material into three and a half weeks, the academic demand can be relentless.
Based on CC workload, a student’s week is largely consumed by 42.5 hours of sleep, 35 hours of academics and roughly 25 hours spent on meals, exercise and hygiene. After accounting for commutes and managerial tasks, a highly efficient student retains only about 7.5 hours of free time per week.
To meet the $2,500 student contribution, a student must spend 5.2 of those hours working, leaving only 2.3 hours per week for true rest or emergencies.
The market value of a CC education is also high according to Lane.
“The cost of an education at private liberal arts colleges isn’t really comparable to minimum wage. Students’ pay, at its core is an hour’s pay for an hour’s work,” Lane said.
Lane observes that the college encourages self-advocacy and views learning as the first priority.
“When you are a student employee at CC, learning is your first priority, not your student employment position,” he said.
He also addressed the mental approach of the student body.
“Students at CC are really hardworking, and I don’t think the first place their mind goes is to make a comparison to a student working at a more entry-level job and wondering why they’re doing all this extra work. I think they realize the benefits that go beyond that paycheck,” Lane said.
Lane was candid about the college’s stance on competitive pay.
“Even for professional staff, if your hourly wage alone is your top motivator, then CC is likely not going to be the leader in that marketplace,” he said.
As of June 2025, CC’s endowment was valued at approximately $1.1 billion. While the administration views a mission-driven program that offers professional development, the data highlight an economy in which students at a $99,605 institution provide labor within a wage system that remains at the state’s legal floor.
When asked what the total fiscal impact of raising the student wage floor to $18 per hour would be, Lane said, “It would be detrimental.”
He added, “If we were to do something like that in our current budget model, we would have to reduce the number of student employees we had or reduce the number of hours they could work. And neither is something that we want to do.”
Lane emphasized the college’s desire to keep its open-access philosophy in place, allowing any student eligible to work in the United States to apply for an on-campus position, as he believes the experience has inherent value.
One campus organization, The Bonner Fellowship, is currently moving towards requesting higher wages.
“The Bonner Fellowship’s pay rate is particularly concerning as it disproportionately and deeply undervalues the work of marginalized students,” Chidambaram said. “Regardless of our job title, CC students deserve better, and if CC truly believes in the value of a liberal arts education, they should prove it by putting their money where their mouth is.”
Fatima Barry ‘28 said, “As a first-generation student, on-campus employment is how I ensure that I’m financially sustainable.”
There is a rising frustration in the student body regarding student wages and the pay rate’s ability to satisfy students’ workload.
“The current pay rate is not enough compensation for the work I am doing, especially as a Bonner,” Barry said.