CAIRO — The student leader spoke in English to the chanting crowd at the elite American University of Cairo. The leader, Amr El-Alfy, 20, told his peers that he was frustrated over the university administration’s lack of clarity about whether tuition would rise as much as 40 percent in response to Egypt’s flailing economy and floating currency.

Mr. El-Alfy said that he was so frustrated that he thought about blocking the campus gate with his car, a Volkswagen Golf.

“This should be an economic sanctuary,” he declared.

For days, hundreds of students have been marching through the palm-dotted campus, demanding a cap on their tuition. The demonstrations are the largest and longest-running at the institution in years, reflecting how Egypt’s economic woes have touched nearly everybody in this stratified society of 91 million people.

While the poor have scrambled to find food staples and to absorb price increases of even a penny, middle-class and wealthy Egyptians are car-pooling more and shopping less, putting their savings into stable assets like real estate, bank bonds and gold, and even waiting to have children.