About 100 students from the three regents schools will converge on the steps of the state Capitol today, rallying against pending multi-million dollar education budget cuts.

The students’ goal is to create state-wide awareness that education cuts will affect everyone and to encourage the legislators to fully fund education, said Nick Klemske, University of Iowa Student Government president.

ISU Government of the Student Body Vice President Charlie Johnson said legislators need to know where students stand on the budget crunch, which would take $15.8 million from Iowa State and eliminate several educational programs.

“The main goal is to gain public support for the regent universities in Iowa and to get a lot more people actively involved in fighting the budget cuts. Basically so people know where we stand as regent schools,” Johnson said.

University of Northern Iowa Student Government Vice President Kellie Greiner said budget cuts will translate into a major tuition increase for students.

“The biggest thing for University of Northern Iowa with the proposed budget cut is the possibility of a 25 percent increase in tuition that would cause a disastrous effect on the university, students and prospective students,” she said.

Many university jobs are provided by the $2.7 million work-study program, which would be cut under the education budget bill. Options are limited to compensate for the funding decrease, Greiner said.

“Besides creating awareness, we need to discuss with the legislators their plans to cut work-study programs and some grant programs for low-income families,” Klemske said. “We need to show people of the state why we need to keep education affordable. This is not just an issue for the schools, but the communities around them.”

About 800 ISU students depend on work study to afford their education, said GSB President Andy Tofilon. The primary message of the rally is that students cannot survive without financial aid, and legislators need to make Iowa State worth attending, he said.

“All regent schools are all in the same boat, and if we have the same message, it will be more powerful and it will have a greater influence on people of the state of Iowa,” Klemske said.

Instead of having 26,000 ISU students fighting the budget cuts, legislators now face more than 60,000 regent-school students against the cut, Johnson said. All regent school students and administrators are in the same situation, he said.

“Students are the main focus of this state, and we plan to push this state forward,” Tofilon said. “But without the help of the Legislature, we will not be able to do this.”

Student leaders want to urge legislators not to play “a subtraction game where the numbers just add up,” but to think about what they are cutting, Tofilon said.

The three schools acting together on a unified front will create a greater impact, Greiner said.

“At UNI, we supply a majority of teachers to the state of Iowa, and this will have an effect on the state with the number of teachers,” she said. “If the state is not treating the students well, they will go to other states for school or to find jobs.”