A discussion about "college" tuition like this is a bit silly when the comparisons are between very different classes of institution with wildly different value propositions. It's much better to talk about specific types of colleges, my (incomplete I'm sure) list:
Private Universities:
These split two ways, on one hand are the Ivy League and other big reputation schools. Stanford, Princeton, Cornell, etc. These are expensive schools 40-100K/year tuition, but generally provide a reputation that adds to a resume, especially if you major in an area the school is respected for (eg Engineering at Stanford)
The other half is a lot of smaller places, liberal art schools, and half unheard of "tech" universities. Overall my opinion is that these are not much better than the private "colleges" discussed below, the key divide is the target market, and availability of campus housing. Frequently these are purely pedagogical institutions with no research.
Public Universities
These are generally financial bargains (provided you pick a reasonable major, go into the history of 3rd century sea shanties and all bets are off) Most fall into the average state school category, relatively inexpensive, not particularly reputed for anything, and providing a broad set of majors - costs(not including housing, eskimo makes a valid point, housing has to be paid for no matter what) for 4-5 years should stay under 40K.
There is also a good number of highly reputable state universities, such as UC Berkeley, UCLA, Georgia Tech, UCUI that provide education quality in line with top private universities at a discount price. The catch is the competitiveness to get in, for majors one of these schools is well known for expect several thousand applicants for each seat open. Even so these schools will generally be under 60K for 4-5 years for in-state. If you're out of state prepare to pay private university-like prices, and unless it's one of the really top schools, it's probably not worth it over an in-state option.
Community Colleges
These are a good financial decision for effectively everyone. Even if you go to trade school, a journeyman with an AA in business or accounting will have the fast track to move into supervisor and management positions. Using a CC to do the first couple years of undergraduate work in a BA/BS is a good move, it's a low risk way for a student to determine their ability to succeed in college work, smaller class sizes generally give better instruction, and even with higher tuition the price is low. Looking around it seems that most places are still under 1K/year for in-state tuition.
These are also an excellent backdoor into the top-tier public universities, saving even more money (especially useful if you're out of state) and getting a second shot at a seat, generally with less competition. (disclaimer: I attended a CC before transferring to UCSD for my undergraduate and graduate degrees. I took a total of 24K in loans, all for my undergrad work.)
Private "Colleges"
These are the "colleges" I have a burning hate for. The "tech" and "art" schools that advertise on midday cable, promising quick degree programs with lots of connections to industry. In my experience these places are uniformly scams. I have personally seen multiple horror stories, a friend's daughter who spent 18 months and 40K getting a basic nursing education to find out at the end the school wouldn't release her records for certification without a $5K certification fee. Another friend I begged repeatedly not to join a small "graphic design" school that promised a quick AA and easy placement - 4 years later he has a BA with suspect accreditation and a finally job making 23K/year; after 2 years of temp jobs and unemployment. Oh, and a mere 73K in loans. These places and the people who profit from them can go burn.
And this is without the discussion of major, which makes a huge difference in prospects and wages after school.
I will say that I believe the recent explosion in tuition costs is concerning, but on average the gain in salary with a bachelor's is worth significantly more than the cost of the loans (including interest) over the working lifetime, when compared to only a HS degree. I have not seen good data comparing wages of trade school completion; which is a shame, it would give solid numbers.
I did look at
a list of Skilled and Trade positions that have common industry wages above 80K/year (median income with a bachelor degree is ~70K/year, but the website didn't allow for 70K/year cutoff) The one thing I note is that nearly all of those are management positions, and several are highly unlikely to get into without a degree, for instance Senior Engineer - most companies I've seen apply that title for starting with PhD, MS +1-2 years, BS +3-5 years experience, and I have never met one without a degree less than 50. To me this suggests that trade school will definitely do better than HS only, but not as well as a degree for the early part of the career, potentially catching up after 10 years of experience. If anyone has hard data on median income for those completing trade school I would be interested in seeing it.