It's better to understand this as an extortion dynamic than a single conspiracy.

Mafia is a good analogy. There is no "Mafia" (except for werewolves, if anyone gets the allusion). There are various crime families and connections between them are loose to nonexistent. "Mafia" is a term people make up to describe what are actually a heterogeneous set of people who just happen to compete in such a way that they get the benefits and the externalities fall out on society (just like an upper class).

Conspiracy theories are an attractive proposition because you can "blow up the room where they meet". If only it were that simple. The reality is that the types of people who are in power are naturally extortionist-- it's probably genetic-- and such people are naturally drawn to the power they gain in numbers, but too individually arrogant and selfish to form comic-book "Conspiracies" (cf. "The Empire" in mid-90s console RPGs). In reality, lower-case-c conspiracies exist all over the place, but there's no "one room where they meet".

Ok, now onto the expensiveness of college and (as mentioned) urban real estate, it's an extortion economy. It's a protection racket. Colleges are (at least in theory) able to protect people from falling to the bottom, and that's the service they sell these days. As the U.S. middle class shuts down, demand for the few remaining seats becomes nearly infinite. That's why college tuitions are crossing the $50,000 barrier and rents are skyrocketing in the few locations where it's possible for a young person to start a career. The U.S. middle class is being "obsoleted" and people, in panic, are clinging to the few successful institutions (top universities, star cities) that appear high enough to survive the flood.

You can view this as a generation getting "screwed" but I see it as a mix of good and bad. We also live in a time when participation in technology is becoming available to the masses. This really is the best and worst of times. We could win big and change history, or we could be the worst loser generation the world has seen in hundreds of years. It's still not determined yet.

I look at the upper classes and see insecurity and weakness. Sure, they're parasitic and mostly evil, but they also are afraid of something. I'm not sure what yet. But a lot of their parasitic hyperconsumption is them throwing a huge party before the curtain drops on them.

I still believe in Avenue 1. Avenue 1 is that we level up on technology and education and make a better world and just outperform these assholes. We build better companies and institutions and allow them to decline peacefully. (Avenue 2 is a violent, worldwide revolution against the current global elite that will probably kill ~4 million before it concludes.) We don't have to fight them directly; we just build things that are superior to what they can come up with, and gradually draw power through positive means. Avenue 1 means we, as a generation, build something like what Silicon Valley was before it became VC-istan.

I see a lot of opportunity. Sure, those in our generation who hoped to have the easy route to corporate executive sinecures have lost that opportunity forever; but Avenue 1 is a real possibility.