NPR had a story on yesterday in which they interviewed a potential home buyer and an expert -- I missed the beginning of the report so I'm unclear on the expert's background, but it doesn't matter. What he had to say was rediculous in any case.

The home buyer was lower income and looking at homes in range of $90,000. The expert was explaining the benefits of home ownership and the apparent need to expand home ownership even to those who are financially challenged and may have issues buying a home.

The expert explained that there are benefits beyond the normally cited investment and tax benefits. He said that home owners are more likely to, for example, have a college degree. The implication was that owning a home would help you or your kids get a college degree.

No.

Home owner's are more likely to have college degrees, more money, etc. There is correlation between those things and owning a home, but no demonstrated causation that owning a home leads to those things. It's much more likely that those things made owning a home possible.

I would expect more from an "expert" and more from a "journalist"... OK, in this day and age, anyone can be a journalist, but I would expect news organizations such as NPR to put some effort into featuring people with some investigate talent that actually question such silly statements instead of just parroting whatever they're told.