I would imagine Colorado to be more like Cali than the Midwest. I used to live in the 'burbs of Chicago until I moved to Coloardo when I was 17. I went to one club in Chicago called Energy. It as a dead night but neat experience nonetheless. Static Bros were playing. My Midwest club experience however was nothing like the clubs and raves out here though. Young people do know about the scene. The raves are usually either all ages (you see a lot of young kids there usually :/) or 16+ (still young, but a little bit better I guess). Clubs however are all 18+. I'd say over half of kids my age (19) and younger usually just say techno. There are people however that know the difference between trance and hardstyle, etc etc. The majority of people roll at raves, but there are still a lot rolling at the clubs. We get a lot of big names like Armin Van Buuren, Benny Bennassi (not sure if I spelled that correctly, not the biggest fan of him), Deadmau5, Ferry Corsten, ATB, Darude, Jon Bishop, Richard Vission, and Dave Aude. I'm not sure how developed the scenes for specific genres are. Most clubs close at 2am, except for a club we have that's actually called 2AM, which opens at 2am and goes til 5 or 6 I think. Raves can end anywhere from 3am to 6am. Most clubs and events take place in Denver, but Boulder and Colorado Springs also have events as well. Denver is definitely the hot spot though. Sorry to hear that your university organized events kind of suck. Out here everyone dances at these events and knows how to get down.

Hope this helped answer your questions!