From what I've seen, at least from 2000 forward in the US it was mostly expected that assignments would be typed and printed in high school/college. A lot of the length requirements specified it (times new roman, size 12, single space, one page). I imagine it was because of access (the colleges I know of had a computer lab), formality, and avoiding back-and-forth over legibility.

After leaving college and not needing to write much after a decade or two, its jarring enough to get used to writing in block script.