A petition has been circulating on the Internet asking students to request a refund from Arizona student legislatures that they feel aren't governing their best interests.

Every semester the Arizona Students' Association receives $1 from the more than 103,000 students attending state universities to lobby on their behalf.

But a group in charge of the petition named the "Concerned Students of Arizona," said that for an

organization with such deep pockets, ASA has a sketchy success record in the lobbying department, said Brian Collier, former ASA director representing Arizona State University.

Collier said $1 is automatically taken away from students without their consent each school year and encourages students wanting their $1 fee back to visit www.asadoyourjob.org to fill out a request form.

"It's important somebody reminds them that someone is paying attention," Collier said.

The group's main issue is that ASA isn't supporting students' best interests if tuition dollars keep going up. While the group agrees education is expensive, they said ASA should be lobbying the Arizona Legislature to get them to pay more for education.

Collier said he started the campaign two years ago while he was still a board member of ASA. He said he thought nobody monitored ASA's "wasting" of its $200,000 budget and reintroduced it this year for many of the same reasons.

Refunds for the fee are available through ASA and refund requests must be in writing and postmarked prior to the 21st day of the semester, according to the Bursar's Office Web site.

The information submitted must include the student's name, student identification number, mailing address and name of the Arizona university the student attends. Requests must be submitted to the university ASA office, according to the Web site.

So far, Collier said more than 300 students from the UA, ASU and Northern Arizona University have requested their dollar back.

Fernando Ascencio, ASA director representing the UA, said the $1 fee sustains the association as an organization trying to make financial leaps and changes for students by advocating for them in the state Legislature.

By keeping ASA afloat, Ascencio said, they can continue to legislate to help make tuition as affordable as possible through measures like the Arizona Financial Aid Trust and help keep ASA a continual presence at the UA and other state campuses.

"The cost of education has been rising extremely fast lately," said Ascencio, a political science senior. "Ultimately students care about tuition going up in dealing with the affordability of college."

Collier, however, disagreed and said though ASA may have good intentions as lobbyists for students, their requests to bring tuition dollars down through the state legislature fall on deaf ears because their position lasts only one year, and many of the lobbyists are juniors or seniors who don't return the following year.

The Arizona Board of Regents established the Arizona Financial Aid Trust, comprised of student enrollment surcharge fees and state appropriated funds in the fall of 1989, to create an endowment for future financial aid and provide immediate aid to students with certifiable financial needs.

These needs include, but aren't limited to, students who are underrepresented in the population of the university and students who present unique need for financial aid.

Student Regent Ben Graff said he was confused about the motivations of the campaign and said he's against this student-run campaign because it undermines and ultimately hurts students in the end because giving $1 back doesn't resolve the bigger issues groups the "Concerned Students of Arizona" are after.

"That $1 is the best investment students can make," said Graff, a third-year law student.

Ascencio said the online petition is simply an assessment, and the group has their own ideas on how they think ASA functions.

"No reply or counterattack is necessary, but I'm listening," Ascencio said. "They are simply making a statement and a critique and not helping in the lobbying force for students."

Graff, whose position was made possible by the efforts of ASA, said students have a unique opportunity to have a student association lobbying on their behalf. He said other schools have danced around over creating their own student association modeled after ASA.

"We have right here a very effective student-run organization which we need to embrace and care for but also hold accountable," Graff said.