I hear people complain that hunting out west is turning into a rich mans sport, and the average Joe can't afford it anymore. I don't think people traveling across the country to go on a hunting trip has ever been something the average hunter does. It never was an average Joe thing to take a week or two off work and travel cross country to go elk hunting.
There is tons of opportunity to get out elk hunting without waiting 15 years for a tag. Not everyone can get a tag in an area with super high success rates on giant bulls, if they could there wouldn't be a bunch of big bulls.
The reality of it is, somewhere around 15 percent of people will fill an elk tag. A huge majority will be happy filling that tag with ANY legal animal. If you want to hunt an area with a higher success rates and trophy elk, this going to be a very limited opportunity.
I also don't think the costs of license and tags has gone up that much in most states over the last 15 years compared to other things. Around 15 years ago I hunted elk in Washington and Idaho as a non resident. I don't remember the exact cost, but both were a little over $600 for license and tag. It looks like Idaho is around $836 for a non resident now. The $236 increase over all those years isn't even close to enuff to discourage people from buying the tag. Back then I could go into walmart in september and buy a tag for the diamond creek zone on the way to go hunting. Now they are gone the first day they go for sale.
The last time I drew a non resident Wyoming deer tag I had bought a new subaru Outback. That was in 2013, and it was $21000 for a brand new one that year. I just looked them up, and a brand new one is $33000. That is over a 50 percent increase in price for that particular new car. Where I live a new house was around $400,000 in 2013, now its worth over $700,000. A new house in the area is $750,0000 to $850,000.
Obviously you may not be able to get THE tag you want every year, but you should be able to elk hunt nearly every year somewhere as a non resident. Everything goes up over time. Don't let a tag going up a few hundred bucks get you all bent out of shape. If it goes up $300, you just need to figure out how to save an extra $25 bucks a month. Any average Joe can do that.