Nov 25, 2014 01:13 PM EST By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

Students across the University of California (UC) system staged a walkout demonstration Monday to protest the impending tuition hikes.

According to NPR, the group that organized the walkout is "Open UC" and it originated at UC Berkeley. A student representative said students at UC Davis, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz and UCLA took part.

"We do not accept this," Hannah Berkman, a UC Berkeley sophomore, told NPR. "These tuition hikes really put into question our right to accessible, affordable public education."

UC President Janet Napolitano proposed earlier this month five percent tuition hikes for the next five years unless the state upped its funding. Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown was among those that voted against the proposal, but the UC Board of Regents voted to approve the tuition increase 14-7.

"Threatening a fee hike unless the Legislature increases the UC's funding is tantamount to hostage taking and that is completely unacceptable," Brown told the Los Angeles Times.

According to the Huffington Post, the UC in-state tuition will rise from $12,192 to $15,564 over the five-year span. Sofie Karasek, a senior at UC Berkeley, estimated that 300 students on her campus took part in the walkout and some estimates placed total participation across other campuses around 1,000.

"Essentially it's a debate between Governor Brown and UC president Janet Napolitano over how the UC is going to be funded, and students are really pushing back against it," Karasek told the HP. "We're not going to be the bargaining chip."

On their website, Open UC said the demonstration is about emphasizing students' "right" to an education.

"Education is a universal human right. These tuition hikes, as well as concerted efforts by the UC's to privatize their schools, have attempted to transform education from a right into a privilege," reads their statement. "That is what is at stake here. Financial burden from public education, which should be free, is perpetually placed on students instead of the state. This must end."

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