Graduating students listen to U.S. President Barack Obama speak at the University of Michigan commencement ceremony in Ann Arbor, Michigan May 1, 2010.Kevin Lamarque

(Reuters) - Students held demonstrations on university campuses across the United States on Thursday to protest ballooning student loan debt for higher education and rally for tuition-free public colleges.

The demonstrations, dubbed the Million Student March, were planned just two days after thousands of fast-food workers took to the streets in a nationwide day of action pushing for a $15-an-hour minimum wage and union rights for the industry.

About 50 students from Boston-area colleges gathered at Northeastern University carrying signs that read "Degrees not receipts" and "Is this a school or a corporation?"

"The student debt crisis is awful. Change starts when people demand it in the street. Not in the White House," said Elan Axelbank, 20, a third year student at Northeastern, who said he was a co-founder of the national action.

Photos and videos posted on Twitter, where #MillionStudentMarch was trending worldwide, showed marches involving dozens to hundreds of demonstrators at schools including Texas State, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Depaul University in Chicago.

A few hundred students rallied on the campus of the historically progressive University of California Berkeley, and posted placards on the outside of a class building showing their individual student debt loads, ranging from just several thousand dollars to more than $100,000.