The term I like is "cargo cult social science". Going to college was highly correlated with a strong work ethic, motivation, future-planning, etc. General succ

The term I like is "cargo cult social science". Going to college was highly correlated with a strong work ethic, motivation, future-planning, etc. General success. Therefore certain people came to the conclusion: make it easier for everyone to go to college, and everyone will receive the same benefits. So everyone goes to college, but that obviously doesn't actually increase the prevalence of work ethic or motivation in the general population, it just means that those who don't have it end up with a useless degree and some non-dischargable debt. The same thing played out with homeownership too. Owning a home was correlated with some types of success -- often the same ones for higher education -- so much effort is expended making it easier to own a home. And we saw how well that worked out.