The easier way is to not use a consumer AP in an environment where you're going to be managing that many APs. You really want to be using an enterprise solution that can be managed centrally, support vlan's, automatic radio channel selection, etc.
For access control MAC filtering is not very effective if you're trying to secure the wireless. It may be effective at keeping casual users off the network but that's about it. A MAC address is easily spoofed and trying to manage MAC addresses in a day were each user is likely to have 2 or 3 devices will be a real pain. And you can magnify that pain by 30 if you're using 30 non-centrally managed APs. You would be much better off using Enterprise WPA2 linked to a Radius Server or using EAP-TLS with a PKI.
There are some decent affordable solutions out there. Check out the UniFi APs from Ubiquiti. I've used them at a few businesses now and they are great and a 3 pack is only $200.