Public universities anticipate cuts to higher education funding as the state of Colorado grapples with a $1.5 billion budget deficit. In an attempt to stay ahead of this, President John Marshall said that every department on campus has been asked to take a look at how a 5% budget cut would impact them.

“We’ve asked every single budget manager on campus to come up with a plan—if a 5% reduction occurred, how would you manage it?” Marshall said. “So you might think of it as, like, a contingency plan.”

This planning is for all budgets that draw money from the general education fund, which is drawn down from state coffers. Every public university in the state draws from this fund. This fund is not sourced from tuition, fees, grants or federal level funding.

Most of the state’s budget deficit is driven by Medicaid, which will be receiving cuts according to a report from the Colorado Sun on March 19. The state is reportedly trying to balance the budget and cuts to programs that Coloradans rely on.

The state’s Joint Budget Committee (JBC) reached a decision on April 1 and cuts to education were nowhere to be seen. Marshall said this won’t impact the decision to tighten budgets.

“There’s still going to be a fairly significant gap because of all the cost increases. Like, holding us without a cut is really great, but our costs are not going to be flat,” Marshall said.

At CMU, between fiscal years 2024 and 2025, the annual operating budget increased nearly $3.9 million on the “State & Local Funding” line. It went from $46.7 million to $50.6 million. This 5% budget reduction exercise would amount to about $2.5 million dollars in reduction from this line item.

Tuition increases are standard and should be anticipated every year. The state put a 3.5% cap on increases for the 2025-2026 school year. Marshall said the state is temporarily increasing the tuition cap on out-of-state students and they’re modeling that to help overcome the budget deficit.

This reduction exercise follows a faculty cost of living adjustment (COLA) freeze while the school transitions to a 5-year review cycle. This cycle is separated by department and, each year, a set of departments would receive an adjustment.

The Faculty Senate discussed COLA in their first meeting of the school year on Sept. 4, 2025 and the Faculty Salary and Benefits Committee developed a preliminary report, last updated on Feb. 2, 2026, about issues with the current plan.

The report indicated that starting salaries for professors would be frozen for their first five years of employment. This indicated that new hires would make “as much or more than” colleagues that have been at CMU for four years. It also indicated that it was unlikely to keep up with yearly COLA adjustments. It stated this cycle process “would likely require too big of a jump in pay after 5 years to match COLA increases” and “thousands would be lost relative to COLA because of frozen salaries during those 5 years.”

The report also states that “Faculty Senate was not given the opportunity to review the university’s new salary plan in detail,” and that “Faculty didn’t know what to expect and didn’t understand the consequences.”

A report from 2023 indicated that the school investigated the economic impact of “Native American Tuition Waivers” similar to Fort Lewis College. This is predicated on the school’s partial claim of ownership over the Grand Junction Regional Center which operated as a native boarding school in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The report states that it would generate about $3.6 million for the school based on Native student enrollment from 2021. This program was not pursued by the school.

The Criterion reached out to Vice President of Marketing and Communication David Ludlam for a comment from the school about this report. Nobody from the administrative side of CMU, including Marshall has seen this report or knows anything about it.

Student Life and the student organizations (Orgs) under it are funded through student fees. These fees are not impacted by state funding. However, all fourteen orgs have been asked to plan what a 5% slice would look like as well.

“You just have to be holistic. There’s not a clean way to sort of like, ‘Oh, we’re gonna cut the math department and keep the Crite untouched,’ you know? That doesn’t make sense,” Marshall said when asked why this was happening.

A parking structure is being built over the Dominguez parking lot and is being funded by an increase in student fees—similar to previous University Center upgrades. The 5% cut from orgs is intended to help offset the increase by a dollar or two. What is likely to be an $5 increase may only end up being $4.

The Criterion requested a breakdown of student fee usage from the President’s Office three times but has not received any information.

Student fees are estimated at $40.80 per credit hour. A portion of the fees are allocated to support student orgs such as Planning Activities Council (PAC), Rowdy Wranglers, MavRides and the Criterion.

Students who take 15 credits per semester currently pay about $612 in fees. At that same workload, if student fees increase $5, that adds an extra $75, but it would be closer to $45 if the reduction offsets $2. Marshall said the parking structure is expected to be finished by Spring 2027. Parking in the Dominguez Lot will be unavailable and displaced during construction in the fall.

Some student leaders believe the offset hurts students either way. They say work being done in Student Life increases quality of life for students and builds community. Reducing their budgets might hurt that.

Orgs were asked to tighten their purse strings by CMU administration. Associated Student Government (ASG) President Leilani Domingo delivered the news during a cabinet meeting with the rest of the leaders in March. ASG is another student-fee funded group and, like all other leaders, are paid a monthly stipend for their work.

Domingo suggested in a March cabinet meeting that it might be wise to carve out a portion of student fees during the next biennial to help prevent such large increases in the future. If students create a “squirrel fund” now, when another project springs up like this in the future, fees might not increase as much. Marshall said this would be the first time student leaders on campus have ever done something like this, even when he was ASG president in the early 2000s.

According to Student Life Operations Manager Gabe Simon, Domingo is the highest paid student leader on campus and recently gave herself another stipend for a position that has not been filled in months: Chief of Staff for ASG. Domingo reported she has not yet received any stipend money from the position and that it’s okay if she never receives any of it.

Article III, Section H, no. 4 of the ASG constitution explicitly states that members of the executive branch may “[n]ot serve concurrently in any other role within the Associated Student Government.” Although this is a breach of the ASG Constitution, Domingo said this doesn’t mean Org constitutions don’t matter.

“There’s a reason why we follow the rules and why everyone is held to the same standard. I can understand why it seems unfair that I might be held to that same standard because of that special circumstance,” Domingo said.

**This article was updated to reflect exact numbers regarding student fees and proposed increases on April 14, 2026.**