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BOULDER - After the state could not follow through with its original appropriation of $20 million to construct a new law building at the University of Colorado at Boulder campus, something unprecedented in CU university history happened. The students voted to tax themselves to pay for more than half of the expenses of the Wolf Law building.
"It is a business model and entrepreneurial model that is commendable and represents the highest quality of civic good of our society," said Lorenzo Trujillo, assistant to the dean of the CU Boulder Law School. "It is remarkable that students are willing to give so much to this project. The taxpayer and the state legislature should be supporting the construction of this academic building, but they were not able to because of the state financial shortcomings."
The American Bar Association had threatened to pull the accreditation of the law school because the facility had been considered inadequate.
The total cost of the building project is more than $46 million. This breaks down into $1.5 million in state appropriations, $12.8 million in private funding, $7 million in loans secured through a tuition differential, $3.4 million approved by the chancellor of the CU Boulder in May 2004 and $21.6 million financed by the Capital Construction Student Fee.
To reach the goal of $21.6 million, each of the 29,000 students on the CU Boulder campus will be required to pay $400 in addition to their base tuition (law students will pay...