I attend CUNY Baruch in NYC. It is known for providing an excellent liberal art and business education in it's Zicklin school of business. The cost to students is about 5500 a year, and the city supplies another 11,000 or so a year per student. That's $16,500 total cost per student per year (not semester) for an excellent education, and this also funds research, buildings (in NYC, no less), and more. And many students receive large amounts of financial aid.

It is entirely possible for a school to give an excellent education for an order of magnitude less than the large schools do, and this is evidence to me that most schools are horrendously inefficient.