People call it an investment because they think: I put something in it with the goal of getting more out of it in total.
They don't see it as finance terminology and the concept of the word investment in the context of others like 'sunk cost' and 'asset' holds very little specific meaning in that case.
Ironically that is a 'problem' you can 'fix' by putting people in college and teaching them basic accounting.
You'd fix it by banning non-dischargeable loans (and potentially making Universities guarantee the loans so they're actually responsible for the candidates they shit out without prospects).
It's incredibly predatory to lure people who by definition don't know that much about the world yet (let alone finance) to take on six figures of debt for something that the investors know in a lot of cases won't pay for itself. It's usury. As an outsider, the fact the US allows it reeks of political corruption.
id argue that with an investment you can compare like to like alternatives and can use a greater degree of objectivity.
there are far more variables to consider in higher ed (student loan debt, opportunity cost of time, unemployment, alternative education experiences, etc) so looking at it as an outflow of cash with a predictable return is misleading at best.
no college has a monopoly on information and there is no proprietary info gained (other than network from elite schools). in a sense the knowledge component of a degree can only approach a value of zero as time goes on. the experience aspect is of course subjective and very important to some.
They don't see it as finance terminology and the concept of the word investment in the context of others like 'sunk cost' and 'asset' holds very little specific meaning in that case.
Ironically that is a 'problem' you can 'fix' by putting people in college and teaching them basic accounting.