The basic thinking seems to have been that it was wonderful for university to be free back when most people who attended were quite wealthy, but once the masses started getting ideas about going it was time to force them to pay. And there again is your generational divide.

—Atrios, on the institution of penury inducing tuitions at British colleges

It’s actually a bit more contemptible than that.

The skyrocketing college costs began with two things:

• Collusion by the Ivies and similar elite institutions on tuition and financial aid.
• It started in the 1960s, when the alternative to going to college was getting drafted, and playing hide and seek with a really angry guy with an AK-47 in rice paddies.