Adjusting for inflation, (without too much controversy, I expect), it is evident that college was more affordable in the past. See for example, this chart of Tuition and Fees and Room and Board over Time, 1975-76 to 2015-16.
And yet, in the United States in 1980, roughly only 15% of the population had a college degree. It seems to me to be a very economical choice to attend. Are there reasons for the low graduation rate?
There are many factors!
Even though the cost of tuition was lower, the opportunity cost of going to college was higher in the past. Going to college means you do not have time to work, so you in effect give up the pay from working by going to college. While, nowadays, one struggles to find a near-minimum wage job making $20K/yr without a college degree, it used to be possible (for men) to get a factory job paying the current equivalent of $40K/yr without a college degree. Hence, in effect, college is actually cheaper now.
From a UK perspective, it's a matter of market forces.
Originally (pre-1900), universities were mostly funded by fee-paying students. Costs were high, but only students from rich families could afford to attend. Places were limited mainly by the number of rich people. Ability was not necessarily a pre-requisite. There were a large number of institutions which funded people without money but with significant skills, but they were a definite minority.
Then the government started funding universities - especially after WWI, there was a strong feeling that everyone (all men anyway; women at universities is a separate issue!) should be given equal opportunities to advance themselves, and universities changed to being mostly funded by government (with some extra from the private sector). Cost to students was zero, but government funding was limited. Every student takes money to teach, so the number of places was limited to what the university could afford. As a result, university places were selective, and only the most able could attend. (Some universities still allowed rich kids to buy their way in, but they were a minority.)
In the 1990s, this changed again. For various political reasons (which I won't go into), government grants for living whilst studying were removed, universities received funding based on the number of students regardless of the value of the courses to the student or the country as a whole, and universities were allowed to charge tuition fees. Now every student was a cash cow, so the incentive was for universities to admit anyone, of any ability, and milk them to the maximum. The majority of students receive no benefit from their courses compared to the experience they would have gained from three years of work, and are tens of thousands of pounds in debt.
And that's where we are today.
In the UK at least, part of the answer is that the relationship goes the other way. University is more expensive now because the costs used to be covered by the government, but as the number of students has risen the proportion paid by the government has dropped.
Its because feeding the family was more important back then, than getting a college a degree. Just like Maslow's hierarchy.. Food, Shelter and clothing was more important than education. So people's priority was getting any source of income whatsoever with or without college education, whichever occurs first.
One important reason was the influx of women into higher education (and the professions). Today, more women than men graduate from college, fifty years ago, perhaps half as many women did. So while the percentage of college-attending men and women both rose over this time, it did so much more for women.
