So, you want to blame his parents. If not them, then who is responsible for this "ingrain".

Yes, as well as the predatory lenders, targeted marketers and a host of others working to dumb down the consumer. Lack of critical reasoning increases impulsive and conspicuous consumption, it is not a coincidence that critical reasoning and the intellectual lazy have increased along with consumption. To believe that culture and propaganda does not have the ability to influence an individuals decision making is to ignore the body of evidence that fascism (and later the soviets) created for us and used with deadly precision.

And then you write several paragraphs trying to shift blame.

I hold all parties equally accountable, that was clear in my writing.

"us as a society" did no such thing. Yes, some folks said "real estate is a safe investment". However, other folks were saying the exact opposite. Still others had different messages.

Real estate agents where free to perpetuate the myth with no repercussions, no one has went to jail over predatory loans, when direct corruption on their part, has been highlighted by several whistle-blowers. The financial industry was bailed out. To me that is pretty indicative of that we as a society are ok with people not critically thinking.

Further, many people hold out some of those individuals to be professionals, that are being paid to do the thinking and analysis for them. When I go to my CPA, I expect him to be a tax professional, I do not educate myself in tax law because, I pay the CPA to do so. To educate myself in it would be redundant and a waste of my time and money.

It would also kill human progress to require everyone to educate themselves on every aspect of their life to ensure they don't get screwed. We don't expect people to know mechanics and when a mechanic recommends more work than is necessary we generally consider it fraud. Again the person that did not educate themselves is to blame for not educating themselves or at the least seeking a second opinion, but it does not absolve the mechanic of his fraud.

What you suggest is untenable as a society, we have to rely on professionals to make decisions for us, as a society becomes more complex we have to delegate more. To not do so would stagnate us as a civilization. We should expect professional to act professional, and hold them as an accountable party when they do not.

In this specific example we should expect, lenders to help children understand the conditions of the loan and the full projected debt and payment at the end of the loans. So a student can see what their debt and payment projections will look like at the end of their education.

We should expect the schools to have clear, data on what their graduated of specific disciplines make, so that a student can compare that to the debt burden that they will incur.

Finally, we should expect sales and marketing to paint a true picture of the prospects for employment and education. Until we do, we as a society share the blame.

We can get into the semantics of who "we" are, but that is playing the blame game, the reality is, "we" as a society should not allow predatory practices in any market where large debt decision will be made. Until we do, we share some of the culpability of the indebted.