ALBANY — More than 300 students, faculty, and staff from City University of New York, State University of New York, and independent colleges rallied with legislators Wednesday inside the state Capitol to support a platform of increased funding for New York’s public university systems, broader access to free tuition, more financial aid, and higher taxes on corporations and the rich to help sustain those investments.

A coalition of student organizations, academic unions, and community groups held the rally to kick off their Higher Education Action Day before meeting with 100 legislators. Participants bused and carpooled from as far away as Buffalo, Plattsburgh, New York City and Stony Brook to join the action.

While state Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed modest increases in funding for CUNY and SUNY, her Executive Budget falls short of the reinvestment needed to make up for years of disinvestment and mounting federal cuts. New funding is also needed to support program enhancements and to cover the costs of enrollment growth.

The groups are calling for increases over the Executive Budget of more than $250 million for CUNY and SUNY senior colleges and community colleges: $108 million for CUNY to hire full-time faculty, advisors and mental health counselors, $100 million across the SUNY system to support program enhancements and cover the costs of recent enrollment growth, plus $41.8 million to close budget deficits at SUNY colleges.

Most state-operated colleges in the sprawling SUNY system are still facing budget shortfalls, including the campus at Fredonia.

New York’s public higher education systems provide hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers with a high-quality, accessible and affordable education. The community colleges are the first entryway to higher education for many New Yorkers and a crucial part of the state’s workforce development system.

“We thank the governor and the Legislature for their ongoing commitment to public higher education,” said Frederick E. Kowal, president of United University Professions.

“Over the last three years, they have provided significant increases to SUNY and CUNY. Unfortunately, public higher education has been under attack from the federal government. We need to push back on these attacks and protect the incredible work that happens every day at our colleges, our universities and our public teaching hospitals. Now more than ever, we need to continue the progress we have made to ensure that campuses have the resources they need to provide the highest quality of academic programs and services that students need and deserve.”

The groups are advocating for financial aid reforms and movement toward a tuition-free future. As a first step toward achieving universal free tuition, they are urging the Legislature to expand the Governor’s SUNY and CUNY Reconnect program to offer free associates degrees for students starting at age 18 at any SUNY or CUNY college offering programs in the designated high-demand fields. The second step would be to make the first 60 credits free at all SUNY and CUNY colleges.