Housing has pretty much tracked inflation since the beginning on time (housing is one of the largest costs that is calculated into inflation, so that's kind of a tautology). Some cities have experienced rapid growth in housing costs, but those are mainly cities where people get paid well. Taking loans for college is still a good deal for most students, but of course there are experts who come down on both sides of that one, e.g. Neil Irwin and David Leonhardt.
My point on the student debt thing is that 40 years ago 'student debt' was a laughable concept, now it's taking huge chunks of the economy down with it. Like, 'costs of college' was a summer of flipping burgers for a semester, right? or approximating that? Now a full time job isn't sufficient to pay for tuition in a lot of cases. I also don't really know enough about money or the past 30-40 years of economic history to comment in an intelligent manner.
I think the cost of college has more negative consequences than just debt overhang, which obviously sucks on its own. Namely, the quality of education declines every time the price goes up, which is an oddly counter-intuitive result. This happens because no one will accept failing at $600/credit for a state school or whatever. We're non-educating a lot of people, and I think that will have far more negative consequences for long term economic health than just a $300-500/mo debt payment. Maybe. Or maybe I'm just an old back-in-my-day type, just like my dad was when I was in college.