Almost all of the student speakers said that state leaders from both political parties love to grandstand about the need to develop a skilled, 21st century workforce, but then continually contradict themselves by cutting state aid to higher education, which leads to tuition increases.

Those tuition increases, they said, price students out of the education market.

“There can’t be any more cuts to higher education. In fact, we need to invest more money in it if Rhode Island truly wants the skilled, productive and competitive workforce state leaders say they do,” said Jack Szczepanski, who, like Oberle, is a CCRI graduate working on an advanced degree at URI.

The CCRI tuition has skyrocketed over the last five years. In the spring semester of 2006, it cost an in-state full-time student $1,090 to take a full course load. The next year, the Rhode Island Board of Governors For Higher Education, voted to raise tuition to $1,195 – a 9.1 percent hike.

And so it began.

Before the fall semester of 2007, the tuition was hiked by another 9.4 percent, up to $1,275 for the next semester. Before the fall of 2008, the Board of Governors hiked the tuition by another 9.1 percent – making it $1,397.

That year, however, the Board of Governors didn’t wait for the end of the year to hike the tuition. Instead, they voted to hike it by an additional 9.3 percent mid-year, prior to the 2009 spring semester. At that point, the tuition was brought to $1,497.

The end of summer and the beginning of a new school year last year brought yet another tuition hike, this time 9.7 percent. It brought the cost up to $1,540.

And prior to this year’s semester, the tuition was increased by 9.3 percent – bringing the cost to $1,678 per semester.

That means since the fall semester of 2006 the price of gaining a semester’s worth of an education at CCRI has increased by 55 percent. And the students at the rally yesterday said another tuition increase was in the works.

Those tuition increases largely coincide with decreases in state aid to education. In 2006, the state gave CCRI approximately $47.1 million. This year, the state gave CCRI $43 million – roughly $4 million less. The institution also saw cutbacks in federal funding.

All things considered, the state’s higher education institutions lost $30 million in 2009 alone.

Nicholas E. Coutis, the president of CCRI’s Political Science Club and CCRI Student Council President Jim Brady organized the rally. Both men said they understand the state is going through a difficult economic situation, but argued that further cuts to education would be akin to the state cutting off its nose to spite its face.

“It’s disgusting,” said Brady.

They argue that the facts illustrate that they’ve already shared in the pain enough.

But how would they balance the budget? The two pointed to the so-called “flat tax,” which allows higher income earners to avoid the state’s highest tax brackets and pay a flat fee, which has been decreasing on a yearly basis. The flat tax was marketed as a way to keep higher income earners in the state, whose wealth would trickle down to lower income workers.

“I, for one, haven’t seen any jobs coming into Rhode Island. What I have seen are students graduating from places like URI and moving to other states in order to find a job because they can’t find them here,” said Coutis.

The students passed around leaflets with all of the state representatives’ phone numbers and districts, asking students to call them and tell them to oppose cuts to higher education.

“You don’t have to wait until November when you go into the voting booth. You need to put pressure on them now,” said Coutis.

Coutis said that cutting higher education is really just a roundabout way of sticking it to the lower-income residents, who disproportionately rely on public education.

“CCRI is the working class,” said Coutis.