The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder), colloquially referred to as CU or Colorado, is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. It is the flagship university of the University of Colorado system, and was founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state. CU Boulder is a member of the Association of American Universities, a selective group of major research universities in North America, and is classified as an R1 University, meaning that it engages in a very high level of research activity. According to the National Science Foundation, the university spent $514 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 50th in the nation.