Enrollment rates are up too (long term). So it's not only taking a bigger bight but it's taking it out of more people: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/higher-education/num...

> three in 10 adult Americans held bachelor’s degrees in 2011. In 1947, just 5 percent of Americans 25 and older held degrees from four-year colleges. As recently as 1998, fewer than one-quarter of the adult population held college degrees.