Professors, college students and university presidents urged Gov. Mark Dayton on Wednesday to take a stand against spending bills proposed by the Republican-led House and Senate, warning of what would happen if they would pass.

For an hour and a half, Dayton listened to short, formal speeches and impassioned, impromptu comments at a roundtable Wednesday morning, on the eve of conference committee work on higher education omnibus bills.

"There's a direct relationship between the disinvestment on the part of the state and the increasing tuition burden our students have experienced," said Sue Hammersmith, president of Metropolitan State University, where the roundtable was held.

Colleges and universities are not spending more per student and, in fact, have been becoming more efficient for years, she said. Now, they're to the point where they're "doing what they do only when they have no alternative -- and that is to eliminate programs."

"These are basic programs that you would expect to have available at any university," Hammersmith continued. "I know that none of those institutions would do that if there were any possible alternative."

Under the House and Senate spending bills, which cut the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities and the University of Minnesota by double-digit percentages, "we'll see a lot more than that, and that directly cuts off access to students."

After the roundtable -- the first of several in various budget areas -- Dayton said the event had served as "a reminder that this has not been a period of expansion," and that higher education has dealt with state funding cuts several times this decade.

He promoted raising income taxes for higher earners as a solution. He said that in electing him, Minnesotans were "voting for the wealthiest Minnesotans paying their fair share so that we don't have to make drastic higher education cuts," as well as in other areas.