“The credit markets inflate prices enormously.”
BIG time on college costs.
Yes, the inflation factor for colleges is at least 10X.
My daughter will be going in the Fall. If they want you, they take half off right away. They presume that you will borrow most of the rest, in fact, more than half of the mail from the colleges that accepted her is about loans, with very little detail, and almost no detail that would help you make a good decision.
Mortgages are even worse, of course. The house my parents bought in 1961 for $41000 is now “worth” $1.35 million, most of the $1.3 million difference is premised on the availability of credit and the dilution of money’s value. If my parents had paid the sellers in gold at the market price of $35/oz in 1961, the seller’s gold would now be worth about $1.3 million at $1150/oz.