While the university has faced some financial hardships due to a sudden decline in international students, the president is hopeful about the future of CMU.

“Anybody who has any doubts about where CMU is should put those doubts aside,” he said. “We have incredible faculty, staff, students and alumni who care deeply about this place. Our future is incredibly bright.”

Central Michigan Life sat down with MacKinnon to reflect on this academic year and what his administration is preparing for the university’s future.

The preparation for budget cuts

The university has decreased from around 1,700 international students to less than 1,000 this academic year. During the fall semester, MacKinnon hoped that the denial of visas for students was a “one-semester glitch,” but that hasn’t been the case for the university’s enrollment.

The president is now asking college and department leaders to look at their budgets and recommend 4%, 7% and 9% budget reductions.

“Those scenarios were led by all of our divisional leaders, like the deans and vice presidents,” MacKinnon said. “We asked them to make sure they seek broad input as they were looking at making those different scenarios.”

During the interview, MacKinnon stated that 9% is the maximum he is asking departments to make, and he suggested that campus leaders take a “narrative approach” when deciding what to reduce.

“If we were to cut a position, if we were to cut a program, what would be the impact of that? Our guiding star in all this is really making sure our decisions are student-centric,” the president said. “How would this impact current students? How would this impact prospective new students coming to the university?”

As cuts loom over the budget for the 2026-2027 year, MacKinnon stated that there will be possible restructuring of departments. One example is the consolidation of the Division of University Engagement and Student Affairs.

After former Vice President of Student Affairs Stan Shingles retired, CMU combined the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and the Division of Student Affairs in April of 2025.

“We created a new office, University Engagement in Student Affairs, and that allowed us to decrease the number of vice presidents by one,” MacKinnon said.

The university’s board of trustees will meet on June 25 to discuss the final budget for the next academic year before its June 30 deadline. He said there is some uncertainty about how much revenue CMU will receive.

“We don’t have an exact number as far as what that cut will be because there are other factors that we still don’t know,” he said. “Just for example, how much funding are we going to get from the state of Michigan. We hope that the state will have its budget finalized in June.”

The need for enrollment growth

In the fall semester of 2016, 24,445 students were enrolled at CMU. The university reported 14,171 students this past fall, a 42.03% decrease over the past decade.

CMU is not the only university in the state to experience a decrease in enrollment, but it has had one of the steepest compared to other similar-sized schools:

Eastern Michigan University: 21,105 to 12,663 (-42.3%)
Western Michigan University: 23,252 to 17,331 (-25.46%)
Oakland University: 20,012 to 5,979 (-20.15%)
Grand Valley State University: 25,460 to 22,035 (-13.4%)
Wayne State University: 27,298 to 24,168 (-11.47%)

One of the first ideas Mackinnon proposed to CMU when he was named president was developing a “Strategic Enrollment Management Plan (SEM)”.

“We don’t have (a SEM plan),” MacKinnon said during his first Q&A interview with CM Life in November of 2024. “I’ve already been working with the leadership of our enrollment team. Unfortunately, it’s not something you can put together in a week. It’s quite complex, and once you have it, then it’s implementing it.”

Around a year and a half later, MacKinnon had created and begun implementing the 34-step plan to attract more students to campus.

These steps included developing programs such as the Central Career Guarantee, partnering with local community colleges and increasing marketing to boost enrollment.

“Not all 34 strategies are fully rolled out at this time, but certainly a lot of work has certainly gone into it,” MacKinnon said.

He said his administration is working to increase international enrollment, but there are challenges beyond the university’s control. Currently, the university is pausing some of the plan’s international enrollment initiatives and is focusing on increasing domestic enrollment.

“Of those 34 strategies, there are three that are related to international students,” MacKinnon said. “We are essentially putting those strategies on pause for now, realizing that the likelihood of success is very, very low.”

He said the rest of the SEM plan is focused on domestic students.

During the board of trustees meeting on April 23, MacKinnon announced that CMU is projecting its biggest increase in domestic enrollment in over 16 years. Final numbers for the next fall semester won’t be released until the beginning of September.

The identity of CMU

With turnover in senior positions and departmental restructuring, such as the creation of the University Transformation Office, MacKinnon and his team have begun to mold the university to fit their goals.

The board of trustees that helps oversee the president’s actions has had its own shift in leadership, with five new board members and four new chairs in almost four years.

When asked what he believes is CMU’s identity and what sets this university apart from others, MacKinnon said that the selection of programs, smaller class sizes and cost of tuition are what differentiate us from the 15 state universities in Michigan and others in the Midwest.

According to the university’s admission page, CMU offers over 200 programs, half as many as Michigan State University advertises. However, MacKinnon said he believes this pairs well with smaller class sizes.

“I think the size that we are, around 14,000, really gives our opportunity for our undergraduate students, if they’re interested in research, (they are) almost guaranteed they’re going to be able to find a professor and get that hands-on research,” he said.

The board of trustees has approved increasing tuition five years in a row, with the 2020-2021 academic year being the last year there wasn’t a change in the price of CMU.

Despite a range of 1.85% to 4.47% increases, CMU remains in the top three for tuition for First Time in Any College students (FTIAC) out-of-state universities in Michigan, with a price tag of $15,420.

“We have the third lowest undergraduate tuition of those 15 universities, and making sure that because we serve primarily students from Michigan, that it is accessible,” MacKinnon said.

A year of accomplishments and critiques

As CMU’s leader, MacKinnon has developed several programs since beginning his tenure. Some of the accomplishments he listed during the interview were:

Creating the University Transformation Office
Starting the Go-Grant program from his budget
Establishing the SEM plan

“It should be more, do I feel that CMU’s in a better, stronger place than it was when I started?” MacKinnon said. “It’s also forming a good leadership team as well and empowering them to make decisions.”

When asked what his critique is, MacKinnon said he wants to remain receptive to feedback as he continues in his role as president.

“In this job, you have to be humble because people are always going to critique you,” he said. “I think it’s having that spirit of humility.

There are going to be times we’re going to mess up, but we need to learn from that and do a better job.”