My father went to college in the early 80s, he was able to work as a ditch digger in the sunmers and pay for his school, books, and living off of that. Let's say he worked 80 hr/week 12 weeks a year. Say it now cost 25k a year (that's low) to go to college. To cover that now you would need to net ~$26 hr to do the same thing. The issue isn't that wages have grown to slow, it is that important costs have grown to quickly.