Sure, houses are more expensive now than they were 40 years ago. They're also bigger (
2700 sq ft today vs 1400 sq ft in 1970) and better-made, with more features. The cost of building the same house today that was the average 40 years ago hasn't changed nearly that amount. In addition, minimum wage makes for an absolutely useless measure of average household income. The ratio of median home price to median income (a much more useful statistic) has roughly doubled in the last 30 years, and if you ignore the housing bubble, the ratio increased from 3:1 to about 4:1. That hardly constitutes a tripling of housing price/income ratio; in fact, it means that price per square foot has
dropped.
I worked through college. My parents paid for my transportation to and from school and for phone calls home, but other than that, I was on my own. I'm now 30, and have a very good paying job (I'm in the top 20% income-wise). It's possible, but you gotta 1) choose the right school, 2) choose a useful major, and 3) work your tail off, all which requirements are increasingly ignored. It's also worth pointing out that the perception of a college education has created (in my opinion) a bit of a bubble. Just like the housing bubble, people are investing ridiculous sums of money into something which doesn't have near that amount of value. You can point the blame in any number of directions--at parents for pushing kids into college when the kid isn't made out for it, at the kids for choosing majors which provide no marketable skills, at colleges for helping perpetuate the perception that a college education is necessary to lead a comfortable life (and who can blame them, from a marketing perspective?), or at the government for artificially inflating demand by guaranteeing loans a ridiculously low interest rates.
There are still LOTS of good-paying, non-college-degree-requiring jobs out there. The trades particularly are (and have been for some time) suffering from a shortage. Plumbers, electricians, welders, and the like. A good welder with his own equipment can make a very nice living.