ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- For years, performers and vendors in St. Augustine have fought for their rights to practice their trade in public areas, sometimes taking their battle to the courtroom.

The city has created laws that limit performing and selling goods on the streets, and now has been considering an ordinance to regulate the horse and carriage industry. This led several groups to join together at a rally Tuesday evening.

Marianne Lerbs has been in St. Augustine for 18 years, practicing her profession as a musician and artist.

"This is a positive asset to the city," Lerbs said. "And artists make a living just like everybody else, so all the money that artists produce comes back to the city because we live here."

But over the years, where Lerbs can practice has been limited and she, and other artists and musicians, have been banned from the plaza and St. George Street.

For Chelsi Miller, the wake-up call came when University of Utah officials said her credits wouldn't transfer from her old school.

Utah's flagship public university accepted her to its pre-med program last fall but said her courses at Everest College, a national for-profit institution with a campus in Salt Lake City, wouldn't count toward her bachelor's degree. That left Miller with a 3.9 grade-point average for an associate's degree that she says did nothing to advance her education and career goals. And, she has more than $30,000 in student-loan debt.

She says Everest misled her when it suggested her credits would transfer and misrepresented what it would cost her.

"I feel as if I had been sold a college experience from a used-car salesman," says Miller, 26, of Midvale, Utah, who last week filed a class-action lawsuit in state court with two other students accusing Corinthian Colleges, Everest's owner, of fraud.