Explore your interests and learn from world-class faculty when you take non-credit courses.

Auditing Classes at CU Boulder

We are delighted you are interested in joining the CU Boulder community as an auditor. Auditing allows you the opportunity to attend university classes for no academic credit. Listen to lectures given by our world-class faculty and stay more connected with the campus.

Community members aged 18 and older, who are not registered students but wish to listen in on regularly scheduled lectures, are eligible to audit courses during the fall, spring, and summer semesters. Please note: the senior discount only applies to fall and spring semesters.

The University’s primary commitment is to degree-seeking and credit-seeking students. Auditors’ course requests will be processed after these groups have registered.

Important Guidelines for Auditors

Please remember that you are a guest in the class and should not participate in labs, testing, discussion boards/groups, or presentations as these are activities for credit-seeking students.

Auditors must be aware of and respect the following guidelines in order to participate in the program:

  • Auditors are not considered students and do not receive the same privileges as credit-seeking students. 
  • Auditors are added to courses after the start date of courses and after credit-seeking students. You can attend in-person lectures from the start date of a course, but there will be a time gap when online course material is not available to you. Access to any online component of a class only happens once you follow the auditor process and are enrolled by Continuing Education advisors in a course with available seats.  
  • Faculty may not respond or provide direct feedback to your communications. Their priority is to credit-seeking students. 
  • Submitting the Auditor Instructor Permission Form does not guarantee enrollment. The courses must have an open seat when our staff reviews the request. For this reason, auditors shouldn’t purchase books for the class until they’re officially registered in the course.
  • Faculty are not obligated to grade auditors’ assignments. If you wish to complete assignments, confirm with your instructor that they have time to grade them (no academic credit is available).
  • It is expected that you will respect the time of faculty members, advisors and credit-seeking students and understand that the university’s priority is to credit-seeking students.
  • Arrive to class on time and please stay until the end of the class.
  • Remember that faculty and departments reserve the right to exclude individual courses from the Auditors Program.
  • If you are enrolled in an asynchronous Online Credit course, please do not use the Thinking Storm Tutoring tab within Canvas.