In many cases HS is the new MS and College is the new HS. It started with the tsunami of government money flooding in since the end of WWII and reached critical mass in the 60's and gets worse by the year. Now that everyone (comparatively speaking) has to go (and does) the educational inflation, grade inflation and price inflation have turned it into a 4 year treadmill/debt factory for many who go to escape reality while pretending to be interdimentional neo-gilded age adult-child hybrids who end up surprised, outraged and entitled when the inevitable happens on the other side of the "experience" that they expected, demanded then ended up resenting.

Meanwhile getting a degree and learning to fly in college is often medical school costs/debt now.