Students in various university campuses in the United States held demonstrations on Thursday to demand tuition-free public colleges and protest against student loan debts.

"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," according to the Million Student March website. "We need change, and change starts in the streets when the people demand it. With students, college graduates, and workers united we can build a movement capable of winning debt-free college for all and a $15 minimum wage for all campus workers!"

The demonstrations were planned two days after fast-food workers also rallied in the U.S. to push for a $15-an-hour minimum wage and union rights, Reuters reported.

At Northeastern University in Boston, about 50 students from different colleges carried signs that read "Degrees not receipts" and "Is this a school or a corporation?"

Elan Axelbank, a third year Northeastern student and co-founder of the movement, said, "The student debt crisis is awful. Change starts when people demand it in the street. Not in the White House."

The hashtag #MillionStudentMarch trended worldwide on Twitter and photos of the demonstrations were uploaded on social media including at Texas State, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Depaul University in Chicago.

Students at the University of California-Berkeley posted placards to show their student loan debts that amount to as much as $100,000.

The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said the total U.S. student loan debt stood at $1.2 trillion from less than $600 billion in 2006.

Presidential candidates offer differing solutions of the issues.

Florida U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, said he would establish an income-based repayment system for federal student loans while Hillary Clinton said she would increase access to tuition grants, allow graduates to refinance loans at lower interest rates and streamline income-based repayment systems.