Shedeur Sanders walked at graduation. However, he has not yet graduated from Colorado.
The 24-year-old quarterback does not have a college degree.
This kind of arrangement is not uncommon for college football players and other student-athletes. Even if that is true, his lack of diploma directly contradicts a university policy from the 1990s.
Shedeur Sanders did not graduate, yet.
Sanders spent his freshman and sophomore years at Jackson State. He ultimately followed his father to Colorado in 2023 and chose to run it back in 2024.
The Cleveland Browns drafted Shedeur Sanders with the No. 144 overall pick in the fifth round of the 2025 NFL Draft in April. The son of Deion Sanders did not graduate from college before he turned pro.
However, he continued to work toward his degree over the last ~13 months with the goal to earn his degree from the University of Colorado and it appeared as though he did exactly that. Sanders walked at graduation with his “classmates” on May 2.
The school promoted it as such.
Sanders made two separate posts on Instagram to celebrate the occasion. His brother also posted the following video on YouTube:
Sanders even mentioned that he might pursue another degree.
“I got to stack up my real-life chips. I’m really thinking about getting my master’s. I don’t know yet. Something I really feel like that would be very effective. I don’t think you have to have your master’s or have to have your degree to be successful, but I’m doing it more for the activity of learning,”
You would think, based on these posts, that Shedeur Sanders earned his degree from the University of Colorado. Except he didn’t…
He was not listed in the commencement program. The school confirmed that he has not yet earned his undergraduate degree in sociology. Sanders participated in the ceremony even though he has not yet completed his coursework. Colorado issued the following statement:
“Shedeur completed the requisite number of credits to participate in the spring commencement ceremony on May 2, which is an opportunity available to all CU students who similarly qualify.”
It is something that happens often. I had many friends who did the same thing. They walked with me at graduation but they still had to finish up a class or two over the summer. This is not unusual.
And yet, there were a number of false reports at the beginning of May that stated he graduated and obtained his degree. Some of them even referenced a 3.9 GPA. Those reports, combined with the posts on social media, painted a false image of the truth. That is not what happened!
Sanders has not graduated. Yet.
Colorado used to have a strict policy on graduation.
The Colorado football team also posted a video from graduation in 2025 that presented Travis Hunter as a three-year graduate. You would be made to think he received his degree based on the caption.
That as not the case. Hunter had not earned his degree at the time. He walked in the ceremony early before his scheduled graduation in December 2025. Colorado will not say whether the No. 2 overall pick actually completed his required credits as planned, citing FERPA.
Did Travis Hunter graduate from college? We don’t know. Same with Shedeur Sanders.
Here’s the thing.
The University of Colorado used to have a strict policy on graduation and jersey number retirements in the 1990s. A player needed to graduate from the university before their number could be retired.
Hunter and Sanders did it backwards. They had their jersey numbers retired before they graduated.
The university downplayed the 1990s criteria. It told USA Today that it was never a specific policy. It was the “preference of an academic counselor at the time. As for today, “the decision to retire a player’s jersey number is at the discretion of the athletic department administration and current head coach.”
It seems to me like Sanders and Hunter are/were serious about their desire to graduate from the University of Colorado. I don’t doubt that the Cleveland Browns quarterback will follow through. I would also like to think the Jacksonville Jaguars cornerback already did.
Still, the optics do not reflect reality. Neither guy graduated when they said they did…