House committee advances concurrent enrollment expansion; Dolores High principal, regional leaders react

The Colorado House Education Committee approved House Bill 26-1078 on March 5, 2026, a measure that would broaden concurrent enrollment to include off-campus courses offered by four-year higher education institutions and career-and-technical offerings from area technical colleges. Rep. Lesley Smith, D‑Boulder, said, “Concurrent enrollment is a fantastic tool for high school students looking to advance their education, save money and try something new,” and “Under our bill, high school students will soon have access to more high-quality college-level courses that save them time and money while exploring their future career options.”

Legislative summary language included in bill materials would create a Concurrent Enrollment Expansion and Innovation Grant Program administered by the Colorado Department of Education to provide grants to local education providers to start or expand concurrent-enrollment offerings. The Department of Education is required to produce an annual report showing how grant money is used, who is enrolling, the types of courses students take, and the number and transferability of postsecondary credits earned; that report must go to the State Board of Education, the Department of Higher Education, the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, and the education committees of the General Assembly.

Funding and fiscal history in the available materials are not uniform across sources. A Leg Colorado bill summary lists 2019–20 appropriations of $1,500,000 from the Marijuana Tax Cash Fund for the grant program plus $44,916 and $105,000 from the General Fund for related college and career readiness and a fee-for-service contract. CollegeInHighSchool materials list $1,476,896 appropriated for the grant program in fiscal year 2021–2022 via SB21-205. Cohousedems’ HB26-1078 summary does not list new appropriation figures; reporters should obtain the HB26-1078 fiscal note from legislative fiscal staff to confirm current funding.

Historical program context from ColoradoLab shows rapid growth in participation before 2018, rising from 9,349 Colorado high school students in 2010–11 to 45,787 in 2017–18, and notes that SB19-176 (2019) requires concurrent enrollment be offered at no tuition costs to qualified students. ColoradoLab also lists the state’s higher education landscape as thirteen four-year public institutions serving 254,981 students (34 percent minority) and fifteen two-year public institutions serving 88,505 students (41 percent minority), and recommends more research on long-term impacts and delivery-mode differences.

The research materials supplied to this newsroom contain no statements or quotes from Dolores High principal or named regional leaders mentioned in the story headline; those reactions must be obtained directly. Other verification items include confirming whether the administrative and reporting provisions described apply specifically to HB26-1078, clarifying the bill’s effective date if enacted, and securing recent participation and transferability data from the Colorado Department of Education.

For information on concurrent-enrollment administration and grant oversight, the Leg Colorado contact listed for the Department of Education Office of Postsecondary and Workforce Readiness is Michelle Romero, phone 303-877-4155, email romero_m@cde.state.co.us, office 201 E. Colfax, Room 300, Denver, CO 80203. With committee approval completed on March 5, the bill now moves through the legislative process where fiscal details and local reactions from Dolores High and regional education leaders remain to be confirmed.