I think any reform has to be more than a tax increase. There needs to be some slashing of services as well. It’s great fun for colleges to be a grand experience, but the focus has to return to education. Maybe students should get their counseling off campus. Maybe title IX issues should be handled off campus. Maybe there can be a consolidation of extra degree programs. Most colleges have a dozen different degree programs that could easily fit within a politcal science or sociology department. Maybe if the ratio of expenditures going to faculty vs admininstration is too low, the college doesn’t quality for federal assistance. Certainly, much of the money going to research grants could go to tuition instead. The public does not need to fund theoretical chemistry experiments that are just run on a desktop. None, or at least much less, of the pubic money should be going to private schools for research or anything else. If the NIH/DOD/NSF grant money went to public universities, you’d see a shift as the best scientists move from Harvard to Michigan.
This is what was lacking from Warren’s and Sanders’ “free college” plans. They were just planning to make all colleges free by footing whatever bill the colleges hand out. You have to also force colleges to keep costs in check or none of it works.
And, again, you only offer the discount to in state students. It’s fun but economically inefficient for students to leave their home state for college. Everyone should have an option for higher ed where they can work their way through school without debt.