I think you'll find it was always like that - perhaps even tougher. Try reading "First Light" by Geoffrey Wellum and you'll see that, even in 1939 when we desperately needed pilots, the chop rate was far higher than now.
Mind you, to be "chopped" from pilot training in 1939 apparently had a distinctly more permanant meaning. Their expression for being suspended from training was to be given a "Bowler Hat" - and that was very common indeed!