Utah student protests tuition hike with $1 bills

University of Utah student Luke Mughal holds a briefcase full of one-dollar bills as he waits in a long line to pay his tuition at the Student Services Building on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City, Utah Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. Mughal is paying his tuition in one-dollar bills to protest the high cost of tuition. (AP Photo/The Salt Lake Tribune, Steve Griffin) DESERET NEWS OUT; LOCAL TV OUT; MAGS OUT

University of Utah student Luke Mughal holds a briefcase full of one-dollar bills as he waits in a long line to pay his tuition at the Student Services Building on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City, Utah Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. Mughal is paying his tuition in one-dollar bills to protest the high cost of tuition. (AP Photo/The Salt Lake Tribune, Steve Griffin)

University of Utah student Luke Mughal holds a briefcase full of one-dollar bills as he waits in a long line to pay his tuition at the Student Services Building on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City, Utah Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014. Mughal is paying his tuition in one-dollar bills to protest the high cost of tuition. (AP Photo/The Salt Lake Tribune, Steve Griffin)

SALT LAKE CITY — A University of Utah student says he paid his tuition bill with 2,000 one-dollar bills as a silent protest against the rising cost of college.

Luq Mughal brought a metal case full of greenbacks to the school Tuesday, the deadline for payment. He says he collected the cash from several banks.

Mughal tells The Salt Lake Tribune he spends weekends working to pay for his electrical engineering degree.

The 21-year-old says he gets a discount because his father is a faculty member and acknowledges his situation is far from the worst on campus.

Undergraduate in-state tuition rates have more than doubled in Utah over the past 10 years. Trustees set a 5 percent tuition hike this year, saying they needed to fund a cost-of-living raise for employees as state funding declines.