Tuition surcharges hurt my feelings. The Arizona Students’ Association sent me a sad e-mail a couple of days ago. The e-mail told me the presidents of our three in-state universities were seeking to raise tuition surcharges. In NAU’s case, the ASA says the surcharges represent a total increase of 21.7 percent over our total tuition costs. So if we’re paying $5,500 now, we can pay up to $1,100 next year in surcharges? That seems outrageous. And sad.

But all is not lost. We can celebrate these surcharges by naming them after our leaders in our state government. If we name our grants and scholarships after donors and nice people, can’t we do the same to mean people who take money from us?

I’ve heard the surcharges called “recession surcharges,” but let’s be honest: there’s no better title for our 21 percent increase in costs than “The Jan Brewer Surcharge.”

Admittedly, my plan does not give credit to congressmen Russell Pearce and David Kavanaugh, two wonderful gentlemen who would rather support anti-immigration Christian theocracy than education. This causes conflict. How will we divide portions of the surcharge to honor all responsible for it? Does 10 percent of the tuition increase go to Jan Brewer while the boys get 5 percent? Or does each share the added cost? I hope our fiscally talented university presidents can divide credit where credit is due. After all, they are pretty good with money.

If the task is impossible, I suppose there’s always the, “Republicans Want to Privatize Education” surcharge.