Colleges Near Denver

One note before the list: Colorado's most recognizable school, the University of Colorado Boulder, isn't actually part of the Denver metro by federal statistical definition -- Boulder County is its own separate metro area, about 30 miles northwest. Within Denver-Aurora-Lakewood itself, the landscape is smaller and mostly public and open-admission, with the specialized Colorado School of Mines (Golden, 61% admit) as the one clear selectivity outlier.