The US has too many students, and not enough seats. Just like California had too many house investors, and not enough condos.
Of course, there might be some structural reason (the UK has better state sponsored education, or the size of the US means there's more competition for the top 2 schools), but it's mostly just transient.
There's a mad dash for the top schools. Don't ask me why. The top schools crank their prices through the roof, spending their gains on new buildings, or bonuses for the administration, or football scholarships, or maybe even research. The flood of new grads on the market means you would have to be nuts to employ somebody without a sheepskin, so the cycle cranks up a notch. Only to fly apart when the affordability ceiling is reached (and few grads have a sheepskin, and suddenly people start looking for bright high-school leavers for such essential jobs as keeping HR records in order), or you can't even get a job as a burger technician without a PhD.
The US has too many students, and not enough seats. Just like California had too many house investors, and not enough condos.
Of course, there might be some structural reason (the UK has better state sponsored education, or the size of the US means there's more competition for the top 2 schools), but it's mostly just transient.
There's a mad dash for the top schools. Don't ask me why. The top schools crank their prices through the roof, spending their gains on new buildings, or bonuses for the administration, or football scholarships, or maybe even research. The flood of new grads on the market means you would have to be nuts to employ somebody without a sheepskin, so the cycle cranks up a notch. Only to fly apart when the affordability ceiling is reached (and few grads have a sheepskin, and suddenly people start looking for bright high-school leavers for such essential jobs as keeping HR records in order), or you can't even get a job as a burger technician without a PhD.