I wouldn't really want it to be lower.

For a variety of reasons.

But as I said, I accounted for Pell grants from the federal gov't and a variety of subsidies and scholarships.

Let me put it this way. The amount of subsidy for public higher education in many US states far far exceeds anything elsehwere in the world. Asking students to take on 1/4 of the cost of their education (when that quarter itself is totally met by Pell grants and grants-in-aid for a big percentage of students) is not asking too much. Many of my students work 15 hours a week at part-time jobs. The alternative to this tuition structure is to dismantle the current system of higher education because we can't ask taxpayers to do more than fund $15,000 per student in a state like New York. The teacher to student ratio at my school, and the level of support, is 3x better than it is one hour away at a marvelous school like the U. of Toronto in Canada. The tax rate in New York is 7% of income, 9% sales tax, and $9,500 a year property tax on a $250,000 house (if you can find one that cheap). These are state and local taxes, not federal. The alternative to $5-7,000 in tuition is a dismantling of the higher education system.

The problem is, if students do not want to pay $5-7k for research universities, they have the option of attending satellite universities and community colleges at less than half the cost. But I don't want all schools to be turned into that.