Colorado Mesa University has created a fictitious world called "Welcome to Featherstone" that satirizes elite institutions' reliance on privilege and wealth while highlighting CMU's focus on students' character and potential over their connections and access to resources.
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The campaign comes amid ongoing national debates about access to higher education and declining public confidence in colleges and universities. A July 2025 Gallup poll, U.S. Public Trust in Higher Ed Rises From Recent Low, showed that while confidence in higher education rose to 42% this year from a recent low of 36% in 2024, it remains well below the 57% recorded in 2015, indicating deepened distrust throughout the past decade.
Publications including The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian and The Wall Street Journal have featured discussions on the role of socioeconomic status and elite privilege in admissions to top schools as well. Social media reflects similar concerns from families, who often cite high costs, irrelevant programs and administrators seen as disconnected from everyday challenges.
CMU President John Marshall, in an interview marking the university's 100th anniversary, described the campaign as part of a broader effort to rebuild trust between higher education and middle-class families seeking upward mobility.
"This fictional world pokes fun at the problem while emphasizing that CMU cares more about students' values and who they are as people than who they know or how much wealth their families have," Marshall said.
An advertising campaign like “Welcome to Featherstone” has been built on a foundation a long time in the making, tracing back to when CMU adopted a strategic plan four years ago centered on seven core values: love, dignity, courage, humility, curiosity, resilience and power.
From these values, CMU developed three key commitments: providing the opportunity for a better life through education, maintaining radical affordability and teaching students how to think rather than what to believe.
In recent years, while many institutions raised tuition, CMU reduced costs for trade and certificate programs and launched CMU Tech, resulting in a more than 50% enrollment increase over the past two years.
Last year, Marshall joined students by visiting 14 underserved high schools across Colorado to promote The CMU Promise, which covers full tuition for Colorado families earning $70,000 or less annually.
In response to the federal government's troubled 2023 rollout of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which disproportionately affected low-income, Latino and first-generation students, CMU issued early financial aid guarantees — a step no other Colorado university took. This contributed to the school's largest ever incoming class in 2024. Earlier this year, Marshall declined to sign an annual ceremonial letter from Colorado college presidents supporting the current state funding model for public universities, citing disadvantages to CMU students. He was quoted in The Colorado Sun on the decision.
During the past six months, Marshall has addressed the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, the state General Assembly, the Colorado Business Roundtable and other groups, criticizing elite institutions for perpetuating unearned privilege. His message aligns with the Featherstone campaign's tagline: "If you want something more real, come to CMU where we care about who you are, not who you know.”
CMU officials say the new marketing initiative represents a "new handshake" between higher education and those relying on merit and hard work for opportunity.
The full-length ad called “Welcome to Featherstone” can be found here: https://featherstone.university/
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