With members representing each of Colorado's eight congressional districts and an at-large regent, the CU Board of Regents oversees many of the financial aspects of the three CU institutions: CU Boulder, CU Denver, and CU Colorado Springs. They dictate the university's budget, hire the university's president and other top university officials, and set tuition and academic priorities. For this upcoming fiscal year, the Board of Regents has a budget of $6.28 billion between the three campuses.
Rinard, a CU Boulder graduate and engineer at KMLabs, said he was inspired to run for the statewide regent seat because “he wants to help the next generation — not just my kids, but everyone's kids.”
Hood, also a CU Boulder graduate, is an education attorney, former educator and nonprofit director. He claims to owe CU everything because of his education and life experiences in and out of the classroom while attending the university, and he calls a regent position “one of the most important public education leadership jobs in the state.”
During the debate, both candidates outlined their respective visions for managing CU's budget and financial policies, as well as addressing student concerns over a variety of public health and safety measures.
CU Affordability
According to Hood, he asks himself, “How can we save students money, and how can we help students save themselves?” as a guideline for his proposals to improve affordability at CU institutions.His initiatives place a focus on lowering the amount of debt that students graduate with, locking in tuition rates for students attending four years of school, using endowments to provide tuition assistance and expanding affordable housing options for students, faculty and staff. Hood also wants to create more concurrent and dual enrollment programs for high school students, hold the athletics departments across all three institutions accountable for funding without raising student tuition, and make the transfer process from community colleges easier and more accessible.
A student in the audience asked Hood to clarify how he plans to lower costs for students while also providing more housing opportunities. Hood explained: “We're not going to just dramatically reduce tuition and increase our housing supply. But what we are doing right now is we are engaging in a planning process for the next decade to increase our housing supply with the current budget we have with the tuition dollars we assume we’re going to get.”
Regarding the ever-increasing expenses of college tuition, Rinard said: “My top priority will also relate to affordability, but I think we're kidding ourselves if we think we're going to be bringing down the tuition at any university. Inflation is forever. Once prices go up, they don't come back down.”
Rinard proposed that the university use endowment money to build more student housing, ensure that students' included fees are going toward things that they actually need, and expand partnerships with community colleges and high schools with early college education programs.
2025-26 CU Budget
Hood said his plan for the budget starts with students, by investing more funding in programs that can identify students who are at higher risk of dropping out and provide them with resources to stay in school. He also advocated for more funding for teaching staff and their departments, arguing that the Board of Regents must “be careful with how many administrators we hire.""The core service of this university is teaching and research, and we need to make sure that we are spending our dollars as close to that core purpose as possible and avoiding any flow that might be coming from over-hiring in certain areas,” Hood added during the debate.
When asked about his plans for the budget, Rinard commented “I know it's $6.2 billion dollars. That's as far down as I've drilled into it at this point,” but will that he will follow “free market principles of individual choice” once the details of the budget are brought to his attention.
Free Speech at CU
Last April, the Denver chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) held an encampment protest on the CU Denver campus at Auraria, which recently led to their suspension on campus. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) were also recently suspended by CU Boulder because their protest efforts violated campus policies.In June, pro-Palestine protesters, including members of the Denver chapter of SDS, directly targeted some of the CU Regents by protesting at the homes of Dr. Callie Rennison and Ilana Spiegel, urging them to use their positions to meet the financial demands of protestors. Since this chain of events, the Board of Regents has become directly involved in some of the free speech rights and regulations on all three campuses.
“In this country, you have a right to freely express your views, and our First Amendment right has enshrined that. But if you're going to speak on campus, if you're going to march on campus, if you're going to camp out on campus, you've got to follow the rules that apply to everybody, regardless of the message that you're trying to communicate,” said Hood.
He added that SJP had been cited for multiple campus violations, so he supports the university’s decision to suspend those involved.
Rinard argued that the key to handling free speech on campus is to “draw a bright line between speech and intimidation.” He claimed that occupation of space is a form of intimidation that prevents individuals on campus from equal access to certain campus resources and spaces. On the line of encampment protest on campus, Rinard said, “People have a right to speak. They don't have a right to insist that they're listened to.”
Gun Violence on CU Campuses
In light of a shooting at the CU campus in Colorado Springs last February that resulted in the death of two people, Hood said that “for too long, this university allowed people to carry loaded weapons to class and on campus.”Hood advocated his support for the sensitive spaces bill that was passed in the legislature last spring, arguing that, “Nobody needs a gun to attend or teach a class. It's incredibly dangerous and disruptive, and we need to make sure that we are passing common-sense gun-control measures across the board.”
A student in the audience asked Hood to elaborate on what future measures he would pursue to target gun violence. The candidate responded that CU institutions can’t just follow the lawmakers, but should enact their own policies.
While Rinard agreed that too many people die from gun violence every year, he took a different approach to the gun violence epidemic that has plagued campuses across the country, focusing on the economic conditions of some of the country’s biggest inner cities, like Chicago, and mental health problems instead. “If preventing gun ownership was going to stop gun violence, then there wouldn't be dozens of it,” said Rinard, referring to the incidences of gun violence across the country.
Students at the debate were confused about Rinard's proposed ties between the economic conditions of inner cities like Chicago and gun violence in Colorado; he later clarified that the economic opportunities of these spaces are limited by black market forces that more heavily influence children who don't have the support of the traditional nuclear family.
Sexual Assaults at CU
During her question, Jessi Sachs, editor-in-chief of the CU Independent, stated that reported rapes on the CU Boulder campus had increased significantly in 2023.“Well, that's the first time I've heard that statistic,” said Rinard, then stating that it should be “addressed quickly and in every way possible.” He admitted to being “leery of the statistics,” arguing that sometimes “date rape gets lumped in with stranger rape,” but ultimately affirming that they should implement a zero-tolerance policy where rapists should be prosecuted as strictly as possible.
A student in the audience asked Rinard to clarify the distinction that he made between “date rape” and “stranger rape,” citing that only 7 percent of attacks are by somebody that the victim does not know personally. Rinard responded, saying that, “If that statistic is correct, then, you know, it's a pretty small problem,” but asserted that no rape is acceptable and he would hold attackers responsible.
Hood, a lawyer who had specialized in Title IX and sexual harassment or assault-related cases, considered the statistic to be “horrifying,” and said it showed him that “we’re not doing our job at this university.” He proposed to put more resources and dedication into preventing more cases of rape and sexual assault on campus, but didn't detail any specific plans.
Mental Health at CU
“Well, as an engineer, I'm certainly no expert on mental health,” said Rinard. “But I do believe the university provides six mental health visits a year for students, and that seems like it ought to be enough.”As for his proposed plan, Rinard suggested that there should be more discussion and education about how “cognitive dissonance can contribute to mental health issues,” and how students should be taught early on in their college education that they have the power to reevaluate what they think and change their minds.
Hood advocated for more crisis intervention resources, as well as more routine counseling services by increasing the number of faculty equipped to do this on campus. “It should be part of the core part of services that we provide to our students,” he said.
John Eastman, the 2020 Election and Campaign Fundraising
After answering the CU Independent's editorial staff questions, as well as questions from the audience, the candidates were given three minutes to ask each other questions.Hood began with a question about John Eastman, a former visiting scholar at CU Boulder who consulted for Donald Trump in the former president's attempt to steal the 2020 election. When asked if he would condemn Eastman, Rinard argued that to his knowledge, Eastman was applying his interpretation of the U.S. Constitution to the ratification of the public vote and how it might be challenged.
In response to Rinard’s speculation on the 2020 election, Karl Iapham, a community member attending the event, said "It's frustrating that people are still talking about that like it's a complicated issue. It's really not. We had a presidential candidate who tried to steal the election and then rallied his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol. That's cut and dried. It's not complicated. It's not hard.”
Rinard asked Hood about his use of ActBlue as his main fundraising platform for his campaign, even after the platform received accusations of smurfing, a form of money laundering where large amounts of money are divided into smaller transactions to avoid regulatory detection. Rinard wondered why Hood didn't use a different platform that was “not tainted by scandal.”
Hood said he knows the identity of every person who has financially contributed to his campaign. He argued that the program isn’t necessarily tainted by scandal, and that even though people have been accused of smurfing on the platform, this has not been the case with his campaign.
