OK, so a generation ago, the vast majority of people did no tertiary study at all. It was possible to leave school at 16 and achieve what was considered a perfectly decent job (if you were male). As those who did go to university received a grant from the State, which also paid their tuition fees, the only individuals who paid for education were parents of children at private schools. This was the norm across most Western countries.
Skip forward to now. Certain trades excepted, it is now nigh on impossible to get a job with prospects unless one has spent at least 3 years at university running up a big debt. Societies across the Western world now expect people to pay to get a sufficient education to make their way in society. While schools have not necessarily got worse, a school education by itself is now manifestly inadequate for this. There is little planning to ensure enough people enter the right degree disciplines. Universities have become huge yet underfunded. Millions find their degree discipline does not enable them to find work: others find they have chosen the wrong profession and have to start all over again or, if they're lucky, obtaining work in the modern equivalent of the factory: the dreaded call centre, Hanging over them is the sword of student debt. In just over a decade, my children will have to face all this.
It is a complete mug's game, yet according to recent reports, the number of people continuing to enter higher education continues to increase? Why is there no obvious alternative?