Colorado students left in lurch as state plans to eliminate teacher recruitment program

Elizabeth Hernandez, The Denver Post on Apr 6, 2026

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DENVER — Weeks from graduation, Colorado legislators are planning to cut a teacher recruitment program that promised to pay two years of a student’s college tuition on their journey toward becoming educators, leaving soon-to-be-graduating high school seniors in a lurch as they scramble to finance their higher education.

Last week, the state Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee proposed cutting funding to the Teacher Recruitment Education and Preparation, part of a host of cost-saving measures lawmakers are taking to address Colorado’s massive budget deficit. The bill to dissolve the program is set to be heard by the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday.

Cutting the program would result in savings of $1.6 million in the 2026-27 fiscal year and $2.7 million in the 2027-28 fiscal year, according to legislative documents.

The TREP program, as it’s known, was born out of a 2021 bill to create a teaching career pathway program. TREP recruits qualifying high school students interested in becoming teachers and places them on a path to complete college courses while still in high school. The program keeps students enrolled in their high schools for two years after graduation to collect per-pupil state funding that pays their tuition while they take their first two years’ worth of college courses.

The JBC’s proposal would only allow TREP students in their fifth year to finish out the program next academic year. All other students, including those currently in their senior years of high school, are no longer eligible for the program, according to the Colorado Department of Education.

“We understand that the JBC intends to include this budget reduction in the long bill as part of their ongoing work to balance our state budget,” said Jeremy Meyer, Department of Education spokesman.

Stephanie Christian’s daughter, 18-year-old Abby Christian, has been in the TREP program at Highlands Ranch public charter school SkyView Academy since her sophomore year. The teen’s autistic brother inspired her to become an elementary educator.

Stephanie Christian said the funding provided by the TREP program was appealing for an aspiring teacher who would enter a historically lower-paying career.

“It’s a pathway because educators are paid so little that they can’t really afford to take out massive amounts of loans they can’t pay back,” Stephanie Christian said. “This pathway established a pipeline for more teachers to go into education to address our extremely high teacher shortage problem.”

Abby Christian was set to attend the University of Northern Colorado in the fall as a TREP student. Last week, her high school counselor informed her that funding for the program was being cut and she was no longer eligible.

The first two years of Abby Christian’s college tuition would no longer be covered as promised, and, because students in the program were still technically counted as high schoolers, they had not previously been eligible to apply for financial aid.

“We don’t have the money for Abby to go to college now,” Stephanie Christian said. “We’ve reached out to see what’s possible, but universities are telling us they’ve already given out their institutional aid. They weren’t allowed to apply for financial aid. Everything is blown up ... She’s at a point we either have to do a gap year, where she doesn’t go to school next year, unless something else comes up.”

About 220 students were enrolled in TREP across the state with a focus on recruiting students from lower-income and diverse backgrounds, according to the Department of Education. It’s not clear how many of those students were about to begin college and will lose that funding.

Recent data from the Department of Education indicated that 10 of the 221 students in TREP have earned a credential through the program. State officials said it will be years before they know how many of those students became teachers, but that the program was growing in popularity prior to this funding decision.

Stephanie Christian said choosing to cut this program signaled to the state’s education workforce that teachers are not valued.

“Our only hope is to raise awareness to get the JBC to reconsider,” Stephanie Christian said.

State Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat and chair of the JBC, did not respond to a request for comment about the program.

Stephanie Christian contacted her state senator — John Carson, a Douglas County Republican — about the issue.

Carson told The Denver Post he’s had multiple families in the same boat as the Christians contact him about the situation.

“I think the proper approach to cutting it is (to) at least grandfather in the students in it now who are about to graduate,” Carson said. “We’re in a tight budget situation, so I realize we’re certainly going to have to make some painful decisions in the next couple of weeks, but I would think if you’re going to eliminate a program like this, at least cut it off in a way that phases it out in a different way.”

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