If you fix that problem by not really changing taxes then how are you going to attract good profs and maintain the school grounds? Tuition and fees are where a lot of money to run the school and pay the employees comes from.

The book thing is a good idea. Though some schools are realizing that students are upset at prices of textbooks and are starting to set up programs for them. The school were I’m doing my graduate work just started a rental program run by the student association. They buy about 500 text books for the general req classes and rent them to the students each semester for $20-50 depending on the book and then when they return the book they get that money back. I know they’re planning to expand this to buy more text books so they can try and cover all the students in general req classes.