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ANNAPOLIS — Despite a struggling economy, state leaders are pushing several initiatives proposed by a state commission on higher-education funding.

Gov. Martin O'Malley was joined at a news conference Friday by Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown (D), legislative leaders and business representatives who served on the Commission to Develop the Maryland Model for Funding Higher Education.

The General Assembly created the commission in 2006 after tuition at some state universities had risen 40 percent over four years.

O'Malley (D) outlined three bills, including measures to stabilize tuition, to track student performance and to make permanent the P-20 Leadership Council, which aims to ensure that state schools are producing a competitive workforce.

The tuition-stabilization bill would make permanent a 6 percent dedication of the corporate income tax to the Higher Education Investment Fund, which was established during the 2007 special legislative session.

O'Malley used portions of the fund to help freeze tuition for four years in a row before recommending a 3 percent increase in the fiscal 2011 budget now being considered by the legislature.

"We're looking into the future, trying to figure out between this swinging pendulum of 40 percent [tuition] increases and four years of freeze how do we find a moderate, balanced, fiscally responsible way of making college more affordable for more people," O'Malley said.

Another administration bill would establish an Educational Longitudinal Data System program to track student performance from kindergarten through college. The state has received more than $13 million in federal stimulus grants, and has applied for $13.1 million more, to develop the system. The system is one of the key components to Maryland's application for up to $250 million that the state is eligible to receive under the federal Race to the Top program.

A third bill would make permanent the P-20 Leadership Council and add two senators and two delegates to the committee. Created in 2008, the panel considers ways to improve education and work force creation and make Maryland competitive with other states.

The legislation grew out of nearly two-and-a-half years of work by the higher-education funding commission. In late 2008, the panel unveiled more than 40 proposals totaling $758.3 million just as the economic recession plunged the state's budget deficit ever deeper.

The most ambitious of the proposals called for Maryland to spend $665.8 million over 10 years to put the state's higher-education spending in the 75th percentile of states with which Maryland competes for businesses and workers looking for a home. Competitor states include California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington.

"We set the bar high," said Del. John L. Bohanan Jr. (D-Dist. 29B) of California, who served as the commission's chairman. "In terms of being able to meet all of our [recommended] funding guidelines, it's going to take a strong recovery before we're there."

"But you have to keep in mind, this is a 10-year guidepost," Bohanan said. "We didn't anticipate when we set it out there that everything would be accomplished in year one, year two. Over the course of the decade, here's where we want to be. And we think we're going to make some real progress and meet all or most of those goals."

Several dozen students at the University of Maryland, College Park, held a protest Thursday focusing on how higher-education dollars are spent and how cuts erode the quality of instruction.

The demonstration came the same day as cuts to higher education sparked protests by other students at the nation's colleges and universities, many of which have seen double-digit tuition hikes.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. and House Speaker Michael E. Busch both said they believed O'Malley will be remembered as what Miller (D-Dist. 27) of Chesapeake Beach called "the education governor."

"We believe strongly in a well-educated work force, and that's the future of Maryland," said Busch (D-Dist. 30) of Annapolis.

Brown (D), a member of the commission, extolled the partnerships between the governor and the legislature and between state and local government and businesses.

With those partnerships, the O'Malley administration has brought tuition for the state's university system down from the sixth most expensive to the 21st, he said.

"Because of our partnerships we can boast one of the nation's best-educated work forces," Brown said.