I think also that the way things have been going over the last few years, whereas you used to only need a single wage for a mortgage and living expenses, these days most people need two wages to cover a mortgage or rent and every day living expenses. There isn't an extra wage coming in that in the past would have been used for holidays, savings, contributions to education (although obviously due to grants there would have been much less need for it too) and so on.
House prices and rents have risen massively in relation to wages, as have so many other things that you need to get on a regular basis - food, fuel and so on. There are a few things that are relatively cheaper but they tend to be infrequent purchases (TV, computer, clothes) so that's great but no good for savings.
For example - I know different people that do the same job (think lawyer/doctor/engineer/professional) that are in their late 70s, early 50s and mid 20s. All of them have (or are aiming to for the youngest!) bought their first property in their mid to late 20s, all couples, all working in the same profession.
If all things were equal then you'd think that they should each be able to buy the same sort of house in the same sort of place at the same point of their careers - logical if house prices/rents had kept on an even keel with wages. However - eldest were able to buy a 3 bed house in what is now a very nice part of London. Although it was a bit of a stretch, they were able to buy it with their combined salaries and the rest of the area had similar young professionals living there. That house would probably be worth at least £1.5 million plus now - so would be selling to a completely different demographic.
Middle couple were able to buy a one bed flat in a much less nice area of London - those flats are now probably going for about half a million pounds now.
Youngest couple - whilst their combined income should enable them to look for a mortgage that's maybe £2-300K - still pretty good but it's going to get them a lot less than the same job would have done 25 or 50 years ago.
On top of that commuting or travelling costs are much higher, food costs are higher even if you have down-branded (or whatever the term is!) and now shop at Aldi instead of Waitrose or Tescos. Bills are higher, VATs more than it used to be. And wages just aren't going up. People are working much longer hours - for many it's expected that you'll get there early, work through your lunch hour, stay on later until the job's done, all for no extra pay.
Dsis used to work in a department of over 20 people - when one person left, they didn't take on a replacement but juggled their jobs between everyone else and it was relatively easy to absorb it without too much problem. Others left over time - never replace, and always the work was shared between those remaining 'because it's just one person's work'. Except by the time that there were only 8 of them left in the department they were still needing to do all the jobs they were doing before so they were all doing the work of more than two people, having to put in crazy hours just to keep on an even keel and it was a nightmare in busy times as there was no give in the system. If 13 people had left all at once, there's no way that they would have contemplated giving all the work to those 8 people left behind -but because of the way it happened the employer was able to cut their costs massively, while having a major detrimental effect on the remaining employees quality of life.
Add to that the need to save for necessities like pensions (the country is going to get hit badly soon as Gen X hits pension age as a much higher percentage than previously just haven't had the money to save for pensions so not only will they be spending less and putting less into the economy, they'll be relying more on benefits too), money for repairs and taxes, as well as nice to haves like holidays... The way the system is set up there isn't any slack in it to save much for education.
The governments have done their sums and spotted that there was a bit of slack so assumed that they could charge for education and the money would be there for the saving and thus the taking. But as other prices have risen and others have also had their eye on that bit of spare that people had - well they've all decided they would take their share of it resulting it there being even less than there was previously.
Sorry, it's late and I'm tired so that's not a very good description but hopefully it sort of makes sense!