How CU Boulder is delivering engineering degrees on the Western Slope
With new degree offerings and enhanced student support efforts, CU Boulder’s Engineering Partnership Programs are building on their successes in graduating engineers to solve the problems of the future. The students pursuing degrees are doing so while living on the beautiful Western Slope of Colorado.
When asked, students often describe their experience in one of the programs as being “the best of both worlds.”
The programs, in partnership with Colorado Mesa University and Western Colorado University, allow students to complete a bachelor’s degree in select engineering disciplines from CU Boulder’s prestigious College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS) without ever setting foot on the Boulder campus.
“Students can earn an engineering degree from CU Boulder at a lower cost while enjoying small class sizes, faculty who are dedicated to undergraduate education, in excellent facilities on a beautiful campus,” said Nathan McNeill, CU Boulder Engineering Partnership Program Director in Grand Junction. “Anyone who wants to pursue an engineering degree has a chance here.”
For students’ first two years, faculty employed by CMU or Western deliver coursework, which is modeled after the main campus curriculum. After completing a simplified admission process, enrollees become CU Boulder students for their junior and senior years. They are then taught by CU Boulder engineering faculty who live and work in Grand Junction (on CMU’s campus) or Gunnison (on Western’s campus).
The CMU-CU Boulder Engineering Partnership Program will welcome its 17th entering first-year student class in fall 2025. The program began in 2008, with its first graduating class of nine mechanical engineering students in 2012. A bachelor’s degree in civil engineering was added in 2016 to address a need for civil engineers in the local Grand Valley. Two years later, in 2018, a third degree in electrical and computer engineering was introduced, ensuring the program could offer the three classical engineering disciplines to partnership students. In total, 343 students have graduated from the CMU-CU Boulder Engineering Partnership Program.
In 2019, in a more rural location on the Western Slope, CU Boulder CEAS partnered with Western in Gunnison to welcome a first-year class of mechanical engineering and computer science students. The Western-CU Boulder Engineering Partnership Program graduated 17 students that first year, and has graduated 67 total between 2023 and 2025. Responding to enrollment trends, CU Boulder CEAS in Gunnison currently offers a mechanical engineering degree, with the computer science degree being phased out. The program will welcome its first class of biomedical engineering students in fall 2025, and aerospace engineering students in fall 2026.
“The program appeals to those seeking a quiet, rural experience,” said Rachel Ackerman, senior academic advisor with the Western-CU Boulder Engineering Partnership Program. “It also creates opportunities for rural Colorado residents to study closer to home and gives students from the Front Range cities a chance to explore life in a different part of the state.”
Between both campuses, about 150 CU Boulder students are currently in the partnership programs. While most of those students are from the Front Range, many choose employment on the Western Slope after graduation.
Said McNeill, “28% of our total CMU-CU Boulder alumni have worked on the Western Slope. Currently, we have approximately 80 alumni (out of 343 total) employed on the Western Slope. Civil engineering is particularly important to local industry, as about half of civil engineering alumni are currently employed on the Western Slope.”
As they meet workforce demand across the state and beyond, these unique programs are poised to continue providing Coloradans with multi-location access to an affordable, high-quality, rigorous engineering education.
- By Karen Ganss, associate director of Partnership Programs, CU Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Science