To meet this demand, in 1925, Colorado Governor Clarence Morley signed Senate Bill 262 into law, which established "Grand Junction Junior College".

[16] In 1972, Governor John Arthur Love signed Senate Bill 16 authorizing Mesa College to begin offering bachelor's degrees, effective fall 1974.

However, in 2003, the CSCC was abolished; each school was granted its own governing board, and the Colorado General Assembly assigned Mesa State to be the designated higher education provider for 14 counties in western Colorado: Delta, Eagle, Garfield, Grand, Jackson, Mesa, Moffat, Montrose, Ouray, Pitkin, Rio Blanco, Routt, San Miguel, and Summit counties.

[23][24] Built in 2018, the 68,700 square feet (6,380 m2) Confluence Hall is home to CMU's Department of Computer Science & Engineering.

The three-story, 76,000 square feet (7,100 m2) Escalante Hall houses CMU's Department of Languages, Literature & Mass Communication.

Built in 2014, Escalante Hall notably features a third-floor foyer with attached outdoor terraces, which provide panoramic views of the campus and broader Grand Valley.

The hall takes its name from the Escalante Canyon, located in the Dominguez–Escalante National Conservation Area southeast of Grand Junction.

Known by the acronym "FIRS", this facility consisting of a laboratory building and a fenced-in body farm is located just south of Grand Junction, near the community of Whitewater.

The building also houses CMU's chapter of Sigma Theta Tau, an international nursing honor society.

During the 2011 expansion and renovation project, delicate care was taken to match the new wing's ornamental brick facade with that of the original building.

Houston Hall houses the university's Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences, as well as many general education classes.

The hall also features a television studio, which is used by the Mass Communication program, and is home to KRMJ-TV, Grand Junction's affiliate of Rocky Mountain PBS.

Facilities include the Brownson Arena, El Pomar Natatorium, Hamilton Recreation Center, and Monfort Family Human Performance Lab.

The center features a 288-seat recital hall, as well as classrooms, dressing rooms, a music library and a dance studio.

Home to over 200,000 books and nearly 20 million total items across its physical and online databases, the three-story Tomlinson Library also features study spaces, classrooms, CMU's IT help desk, and common areas.

In 2010, the three-story, 31,900 square feet (2,960 m2) science center was added to the hall to make room for more classrooms and research spaces.

[31] The latest expansion is expected due to the passage of Colorado General Assembly bill SB23-250,[32] sponsored by Barbara Kirkmeyer, Kyle Mullica, Marc Catlin, and Shannon Bird, which secured $6 million for further implementation of CMU's geothermal exchange system.

[31] The initiative's purpose is to "examine opportunities for and barriers to the increased deployment of geothermal energy technologies for both electricity generation and heating and cooling systems in western states, which contain the vast majority of high-yield geothermal energy capacity in the U.S."[35] The university is governed by a Board of Trustees, which has 13 trustees (11 voting and two non-voting).

[38] In the fall 2024 semester, CMU accepted its largest incoming class in school history, welcoming 2,391 new students to campus.

Over 2,000 students live on campus in 13 residential buildings, consisting of traditional rooms, suites and pods, and apartments.

The university features three fraternities and two sororities:[44] CMU's athletic teams are known as the Mavericks; their mascot is symbolized by a rearing bull's head with flaring nostrils.

Prior to becoming a four-year institution in 1974, the Mavericks competed in the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA).

However, the university ultimately turned down the offer, citing the expenses which would be required to make the jump, including a $1.7 million Division I application fee and a $100,000 penalty for leaving the RMAC, in addition to increased salaries for coaches and athletic staff.