In an effort to bring awareness and change to the skyrocketing cost of college tuition, students from across the country walked out of their classrooms on Thursday to participate in the Million Student March.

Thousands of people from over 100 college campuses from Los Angeles to New York joined rallies in protest of rising student loan debt. They also demanded tuition-free public colleges and a minimum wage hike for campus workers.

According to the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the total amount of outstanding U.S. student loan debt has more than doubled, from $600 billion in 2006 to $1.2 trillion, reports Reuters.

On Facebook, organizers with the Million Student March listed a set of demands that include "tuition-free public college, a cancellation of all student debt, and a $15/hr campus wide minimum wage everywhere."

"Education should be free. The United States is the richest country in the world, yet students have to take on crippling debt in order to get a college education," the movement's organizers said in a statement on their website.

The demonstrations were held just days after fast-food workers organized a nationwide rally on Tuesday to push for a $15-an-hour minimum wage and the right for workers to unionize.

The goal of the march was inspired by a comment made by 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders about higher education, according to UC Berkeley student Kevin Sabo, reports the Daily Californian. Earlier this year, the Vermont senator said it would take a million students marching to push elected officials to act on higher education costs.

"If a million young people march on Washington [and] they [say] to the Republican leadership, 'We know what's going on, and you better vote to deal with student debt. You better vote to make public universities and colleges tuition free.' That's when it will happen," Sanders told Yahoo's Katie Couric back in June.

Sanders has also emphasized making tuition free at public colleges by putting a tax on Wall Street transactions as a key part of his campaign.