It's important to note that college tuition isn't going up because they're being greedy jerks. It's going up because the government subsidized education heavily during the cold war, out of fear that the Russians were going to outpace us in space and with technology. Our current prosperity is a result of that investment.

Over the decades, the federal and state governments have cut these subsidies, down from 75%+ to 10-15% for many institutions. Schools are struggling (state school budgets are public for your review), and it's not because the professors and staff are living large.

This feeds into the student debt explosion, and why it's not a fair comparison to suggest that a 60-year-old having paid for their subsidized education is the same as a 25-year-old swimming in debt.