Nikita Leavenworth was one of more than 400 college students who filled the state Capitol rotunda today to protest higher ed budget cuts and the threat of more tuition increases—which will certainly come if the legislature revives last year's bill to transfer tuition setting authority to universities and colleges, a recommendation the governor’s  Higher Education Funding Task Force report made earlier this year.

Governor Chris Gregoire's budget proposes a $170 million drop in funding to community and technical colleges from 2009 to 2013, or a 23 percent decrease.

Leavenworth, who gets the award for best protest sign of the day (above), goes to Grays Harbor College, a two-year community college. This wasn't the UW set.  All the folks crowded on the marble steps on both sides of the grand hall and in the balcony above, go to a community or technical college.

"Community colleges across that state have been a place where lower-income people have been able to gain their education and still be able to support a family," said student speaker Nik Steele, a student at South Puget Sound Community College, one of several students who addressed the raucous crowd, which turned the rotunda into what seemed like a college football game. "Students across the board, whether they're students in worker re-training programs or a student that is getting a two year degree before going back into the work force, none of us can take a large increase in tuition."

The state's 34 community and technical colleges enroll 144,000 full time students—204,000 in all.

During the last year, tuition at community and technical colleges averaged about $3,000 per year, State Board of Community and Technical Colleges communications director Janelle Runyon told PubliCola. During the current biennium tuition has increased seven percent each year and is set to increase another 10 percent each year through the 2011-2013 biennium if Governor Gregoire's proposed funding rates clears the legislature.

Gregoire has proposed a total decrease of $630.7 million to the the state's higher education budget as a whole. Runyon said the drop in funding would equal an $89 million decrease to the state's community and technical colleges this biennium, bringing total funding down to $580 million during this period.