More people go to college and have college degrees today than ever before.

There is more aid available There is no doubt that the cost of college has risen (see "Worse off"). But so, too, has the availability of student aid, which was just getting started in the early 1970s.

Back then, said Sandy Baum, senior policy analyst at the College Board, "students and their parents were paying most of the costs themselves." But today, because there's so much student aid out there, parents have more options," she said.

Student bodies are more diverse Today, there are more women and minorities among the ranks of college students and graduates. In fact, women are now much more likely to go to college and to graduate from college than men, which raises concerns about the relative decline in male students, Baum said.

And while there is still a wide gap between white students and minority students both in terms of college enrollment and graduation rates, it has narrowed since the early 1970s, when white students accounted for 83 percent of enrolled students and minorities only 15.4 percent.

A college degree is more valuable As it did in the 1970s, a college degree translates into greater income for graduates. According to the latest figures from the Census Bureau those with a bachelor's degree earn an average of $23,000 a year more than those with a high school degree. That's more than the $15,400 premium college grads had in 1976.