Bye, mom and dad!

Don’t let the dorm door hit you on the way out!

Thousands of 18-year-olds from all 50 states and the District of Columbia and 47 countries moved into The University of Colorado at Boulder Monday morning to start college.

Of the 8,400 students who will be living on campus, 7,000 are newbies — fresh from high school.

Nearly half of the newest students have a high school grade point average of 4.0 or higher and many of them have started their own businesses, which generate income, said spokesperson Stacy Wagner.

It’s unknown whether there would be pro-Palestinian protests on campus coinciding with the start of school Monday, but Wagner said if there are, “CU Boulder supports our campus community’s right to peacefully protest, as protected by the First Amendment.”

Tensions have run high on college campuses since Oct. 7, when Hamas militants crossed into southern Israel and killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages.

Many protesters in the U.S. have vowed to continue their action, pointing to Gaza’s rising death toll, which surpassed 40,000 on Thursday, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.

Some of the new rules imposed by universities include banning encampments, limiting the duration of demonstrations, allowing protests only in designated spaces and restricting campus access to those with university identification.  

At the time of this writing, there were no indications that protests would interrupt CU’s annual moving-in day.

Chancellor Justin Schwartz, who was just hired to lead the university last month, will actually be in the mix, helping students move in.

CU students have historically been civically engaged.

In the 2020 election, 80% of them voted. The youth vote will be important in this year’s presidential elections, and a Tufts University study indicated that though there are 41 million Gen Z Americans — Gen Z includes anyone aged 18-27 — the newest voters have not historically turned out well.

In 2022, only 18% of the newest eligible voters, aged 18-19, participated in the elections, according to the Tufts research.

Tufts also found that almost half of the 2024 Gen Z electorate in the United States are people of color. But in the Western U.S., people of color make up over half of the majority at 60%. 

Though numbers for 2024 will not be available until September, the CU 2023 census indicated that 12.6% of the student body identified as Hispanic, 9.5% were of Asian descent, 2.7% Black enrollment and 1.5% American Indian.  

Wagner said since Deion Sanders as head coach of the CU football team has had a significant impact on campus. Applications from Black students in 2024 were up 50%, while CU applications were up overall by 20%.

The top three states represented at CU this year were California, Texas and Illinois.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.