Higher cost, lower value

In 1880, it cost:
$400 per year to attend Vassar. This included tuition, room, board, heat, light, and laundry service. Adjusted for inflation, $400 in 1883 equals $9,635 in 2013.
$300 per year to attend Georgetown. This included room, board, and tuition. Adjusted for inflation, $300 in 1883 equals $7,126 in 2013. Georgetown law charged $150 for the entire law school tuition, and $100 for the entire series of medical school lectures.

Since 1980, inflation has caused everything to more than double in price. What cost $1 in 1980 now costs $2.15. However, every dollar in college tuition in 1980 is now $5.98. That's right, college tuition is rising at a rate that is 5 times higher than inflation.

Abraham Lincoln took the Bar exam, and never even completed the third grade. It wasn't until the colleges convinced the government that they should mandate a college degree in order to practice many careers that college became the large business it is today.
In the 1980s, it was possible to be a Physician Assistant with only an Associate's degree. Now it requires a Masters. The school itself is still two years, but it now requires a Bachelor's degree for entry. What the degree is in does not matter.
Nurse Practitioner was a master's program, now it is becoming a PhD program.
Registered Nurse is fast requiring a profession requiring a BSN.

All of this increases the pay that people expect to receive for these careers, and therefore the costs of the services. Instead of being angry at what health care costs, the public should be angry at what it costs to be a health care worker.

In 1950, only one third of the adults in the United States had a high school diploma. Many of the adults were blue collar factory workers and made a good living. Only about 1 in 20 adults had graduated from college.
That was before education became big business. School became easier, and kids were passed on to the next grade, not because they had mastered the skills needed, but because teachers were afraid of damaging the kids' self esteem. In 2010, 80 percent of adults were high school graduates, and 20 percent had a 4 year degree or more.
The latest generation is flush with college degrees that mean little, because many schools are offering degrees in things that are not needed job skills. Because we have all of these degrees, we are demanding high wages, and this has driven the blue collar jobs out of the country. Unemployment is rampant. At the same time, we are paying people the equivalent of $10 an hour to sit at home for up to two years, so there is little to no incentive for work.
Instead of making things like cars and appliances, we sit around and make war and college graduates with degrees in French Poetry and Women's Studies.