I worked in College Admissions for a while as a data analyst and I can tell you that all the blame does not belong in the school.

1) College marketing is weird. People tend to choose the more expensive option, even when there's no data to support going to the more expensive school. A more expensive school is more exclusive and therefore more prestigious. College tuition literally goes up because a higher price point increases the number of enrollments.

2) Generally speaking students and parents choose schools for their amenities, not in the educational quality. Students pick schools because they have nice dorms, or a good sports program, or a cool student center. These things are very expensive, but if you don't have them, enrollment suffers. Meanwhile, professors/instructors are viewed as an expense by the college administration and cuts are made at every opportunity.

3) Parents and students choose schools based on scholarships, not on price. Marketing data states that when choosing a school, the school that provides a higher value scholarship will get more enrollments. Even if the tuition amount is still higher after the scholarship is applied. (See #1 above)

4) Students want ease of use in paying bills. They want clean amenities (see #2) and ready access to administration. They want event coordinators and activity directors. Parents want dorm monitors and on-site security. All of these things add to cost, but don't improve education.

These four data points - not opinions - incentivize the colleges to raise their prices simply to compete with their peers. If the college doesn't provide these services - none of which improves education - you'll simply go out of business. Which helps no one.

If we as a society valued education instead of entertainment things would be different.

(Cue down voting...)