Denver’s Metropolitan State College, a haven for working, older and other non-traditional students since 1965, is undergoing a dynamic transformation. Metro is beginning to look, well, more traditional.
With rocketing tuition rates at other Colorado schools, more students are choosing Metro, rather than just settling for it.
The classroom profile is rapidly changing, too, as younger students from Denver’s suburbs flock to the school. The commuter-style campus gets a homier, more residential feel with dorm-like facilities sprouting at its edges.
And with a new president promising to invest in more tenure-track faculty members and expanding into other areas of the state, these are ambitious days for the school celebrating its 40th year.
Metro this fall became Colorado’s second-largest school, surpassing Colorado State University with an enrollment of 21,109 students. (The University of Colorado’s Boulder campus is tops with 24,600 students.)
Fifty-seven percent of Metro’s students are under 24 years old, and 70 percent of its students come from the suburbs.
Three student-housing projects, paid for by private developers, are taking root around the Auraria campus, where Metro has faithfully sat for most of its 40 years. The new “dorms” will help draw even more students searching for a more traditional campus that’s close to home.
There’s also some hope the housing will increase student retention between their first and second years, where Metro sees quite a dropoff.
Stephen Jordan was hired as the school’s 15th president this past summer, and he’s developing a 10-year plan to make Metro the country’s “pre-eminent public urban baccalaureate college.” He wants 60 new tenure-track faculty on campus by next fall.
Jordan came to Metro from Eastern Washington University with grand visions, including an initiative to bring some Metro programs to community colleges across the state.
Metro is educating the workforce of tomorrow. While many Colorado schools try to hide their embarrassing ethnic minority enrollment numbers, Metro boasts that 24 percent of its students are people of color.
With steep budget cuts across the board in higher education the past few years, these have been trying times for Colorado colleges and universities, including Metro State.
“You are not going to build a great college waiting for the state to fund it,” Jordan says, citing successes he had with EWU using private money from Microsoft and federal grants to create a popular cyber-security program.
The passage of Referendum C would certainly help Metro’s prospects, but either way, it’s good to know the school is ambitious to expand its service to the state.
