Students, teaching assistants and supporters gathered on Library Mall Friday and marched to the Capitol to rally for lower tuition.
Signs noting \October is too cold for hiking"" and a steadily increasing number of students drew attention to the already energized crowd.
UW-Madison junior and Associated Students of Madison student representative Vanessa Ferniza was the first to address the crowd.
""I was elected to voice your concerns. It's about time I do something about it,"" she said.
Responding to the accusations that students were living in a ""dream world,"" Ferinza said she would rather be living in a dream world if it meant higher education as a right for everyone.
""Higher education doesn't have to come with a high price,"" Ferniza said.
UW-Madison junior Josh Healey spoke to the crowd of over 200 and stressed students were not asking for affordable tuition, they were demanding it.
The politicians are just paying the students lip service, he said. ""We are not going to have it.""
Healey said the government spends almost six times as much to incarcerate a person than to educate students.
The students, armed with signs, makeshift drums and loudspeakers, then marched six blocks to the Capitol building.
Former UW Regent Nino Amato said he supported the rally at the request of several student organizations and renewed his past suggestion of a tuition freeze.
""A tuition freeze is one of the most reasonable things [the Regents] can do to help students and stimulate the economy to give more people opportunity to go to college,"" he said.
What was most important about the whole day, Amato said, was the recognition that the government and legislature targeted the students with a discriminatory tax of 37.5 percent over a two-year period.
The real risk, he said, is the land grant colleges of the university system were built for affordability and quality, and what the UW Regents are doing is ""back-door privatization.""
With tuition increases of 37.5 and 4.3 percent, the Regents are eliminating segments of the community that need higher education and will not be able to afford it, he said.
""We are becoming a gated community,"" Amato warned. ""Unless we reprioritize, the state is going to be in serious trouble.""
