Why is a house an asset but an education isn't? Do you think a potential spouse would pass over the neurosurgeon?
You could and people have tried to make derivative securities to commoditize people's educations and then you could try to literally sell your education (or more like future returns on your work based off your education) but until you do that it's not a liquid asset.
An education guarantees nothing. The neurosurgeon could die, or suffer an injury preventing them from performing surgery, or just plain quit and decide to pursue art instead.
Of course the neurosurgeon has a significantly higher potential future value, but it's an unrealized asset.
Also, it's possible to discharge a mortgage through bankruptcy, while student loans are much more difficult to discharge, so you're effectively stuck with that debt forever regardless of your career choice.
The 2007 / 2008 financial crisis was partially triggered by the fact that this age old adage is not necessarily true.
Give the house for rent and live in a smaller house.
Comparing it with education, you cannot transfer education and its value. It will die with you. In IT there is a chance that your education will get outdated really soon with no value. This is similar to the housing market but atleast in this case there is a chance that the market will go up. In case of IT education there is no chance and the value will hit zero. For your retirement a house giving constant rent is I think your most valuable asset as you never know if you outlive your retirement savings.
Like: 1.5% of neurosurgeons suffer an injury that prevents them from performing surgery. Then adjust all calculations based on this.
As with everything: to know if a single flip coin is going to be heads or not is basically impossible, but over a large enough number, you can be certain the number of heads will be close to 50%.
A single neurosurgeon? Who knows?
The entire population of neurosurgeons? Now we can use actuarial science and measure everything in micromorts.
And can't a Neurosurgeon take out equivalent insurance to cover the worst case scenarios that you described? I am sure I have heard of famous singers insuring their voices.
A house can be liquidated and potential profit realized rather quickly. Education, not so much. You can insure yourself (and should, if you could lose your work by getting in an accident), so that you get a set amount paid out each month in case you end up in a wheelchair or similar state that would keep you from working.
This is a beautiful point. I feel in a country where the Government is stable most of the people would go for higher education thinking it is an asset. The real asset is tangible resources like a house, land, farm etc.
In a country where the Government is unstable it is better to have an education so that you emigrate to a better country with your education as the ticket.