Students from across the state will join forces at 1 p.m. today in the Pennsylvania Capitol Building to rally for increased state support for higher education.

The Rally in the Rotunda, an annual event organized by the Council of Commonwealth Student Governments (CCSG), will bring together students from state and state-related universities to lobby for higher state appropriations for public schools in Pennsylvania.

Derek Dureka, governmental affairs director for CCSG, said he expects 200 to 300 students to attend the rally, including representatives from the 19 commonwealth campuses as well as the University of Pittsburgh and Temple University.

"With November and the elections, if we can get legislators to make it a platform goal, then we can hold those legislators accountable," Dureka said, referring to rising tuition rates.

Keynote speakers for the rally will be state representatives Jeff Coy, D-Franklin, Lynn Herman, R-Centre, and John Yudichak, D-Luzerne.

Herman said he is looking forward to interacting with students in the state Capitol.

"The other legislators need to know that students and their families, who they represent, are positively affected by increased state support for higher education and student grant programs in the state budget because it helps to keep tuition down and make a college education affordable," Herman said.

In the past three years, Penn State has suffered from cutbacks totaling $50 million. Because of the declining level of state support, tuition increased by 9.8 percent last year and 13.5 percent in 2002-03.

Dureka said the rally will be the largest lobbying effort since 1975, when students from the state-related schools, Penn State, Temple, Pittsburgh and Lincoln, banded together during the Appropriations Demonstration.

CCSG President Joe Curigliano said he is going to speak at the rally on behalf of students. "I'll be giving a student's perspective on how decreased appropriations are hurting students all across the commonwealth," Curigliano said. "More and more students are taking on more debt and more part-time jobs to pay off tuition."

CCSG members also met with more than 20 state legislators while lobbying in Harrisburg last Tuesday.

Dureka said this discussion also focused on how to prevent students from leaving the state after graduation and how to ensure that students vote in the Pennsylvania primaries on April 27 and in the general election on Nov. 2.

CCSG also has a lobbying trip to Washington, D.C., planned for late April, during which its members will meet with U.S. legislators to discuss federal support for higher education.

"It's really easy to mass produce letters," Dureka said. "But from what I've heard, they kind of just get filed away; but you can't file away visits."