What types of service are available near you?

Do you have any cable internet in the area apart from DSL? Although by the sounds of it if you can't even get 3Mbps reliably then you must be pretty cut off from a comms point of view.

I have never really seen DSL lines successfully used to serve large groups of people. The asymmetric properties don't lend them selves well to the situation. A university near me tried this to cut costs and it ended in disaster (and them spending a whole load of money!) after we (the telco) refused to visit site until they took the load off the lines.

The best thing I could suggest for DSL would be to install 1 line per 10 people for students, but that would be 15 DSL lines which would start making a larger backhaul circuit seem cost effective. There really isn't any other solution than to stump up and pay for a fibre into the building. Short term pain long term gain.

Cheers

Cris.