“Tuition runs out on Leap Day?” “What do you mean tuition ran out. Is Marquette broke?!” Questions like this filled campus Feb. 29 after various signs about Tuition Runs Out Day appeared.

Like many students, we at the Tribune were initially a bit unclear about what these signs were advertising.

According to the university’s website, tuition only covers 62 percent of the cost of a Marquette student’s education. Tuition Runs Out Day marks the point in the school year when tuition stops paying for a student’s education and generous alumni and donors take over (good thing we looked this up online, or we still would have been slightly puzzled about the signs).

We believe that it is very important to recognize and thank our donors, without whom many of us would not be able to attend Marquette. However, if the day had been marketed and promoted more clearly, many additional donors could have received the acknowledgment they deserve.

Students wrote about 500 thank you cards on Tuition Runs Out Day. Only 500. More than 8,000 students attend Marquette. Surely more than 500 of them receive scholarships from donors and alumni.

Even likelier than assuming over 500 students receive scholarships, we think more than 500 of them appreciate and admire alumni and donors for lessening the financial burden of higher education. We would have loved to been able to write a thank you card on Tuition Runs Out Day, but (like the average student) we didn’t know much about the day or the fact we had this opportunity to show our gratitude.

Not only did the day lack proper promotion from the university, we believe it was marketed toward students ineffectively.

Multiple Tuition Runs Out Day signs around campus gave us the impression that Marquette is already asking for our donations for future students. We haven’t even graduated yet!

Once we do graduate, paying off student loans will have to take priority over donating to Marquette. Even paying our own bills after graduation could be a struggle, and more than likely we’ll be running around cities nationwide vigorously filling out job applications and eating our moms’ leftover lasagna.

Don’t get us wrong — we love the idea of thanking our donors, but we think we could have done a better job. If more students had known about the thank you card writing on Tuition Runs Out Day, more donors would have been thanked. We do recognize that other than Tuition Runs Out Day, Marquette provides opportunities where students can show their appreciation toward donors. Many of us have attended alumni thank you dinners or scholarship celebration luncheons. We love those things! Why don’t we have more of them?

Overall, the day encouraged students to continue to support Marquette after graduation, just like many gracious alumni do. We are grateful for the financial support provided by thousands of parents, faculty, staff and other members of the Marquette community. But we don’t need to be reminded to be thankful. We are fully aware of their donations, because, without their help, we probably wouldn’t be at Marquette.

We don’t need to feel guilty or obligated to send a thank-you card one day out of the year. The thing is, we appreciate our donors every single day. If there were more opportunities for us to thank the people who make our education possible, we would take advantage of them — willingly.