Whilst it would be lovely if us Englishmen didn’t have student loans, they could be a whole lot worse. We only pay them once we earn over a certain threshold, and they’ll disappear after 30 years. Plus our unis are funded in large part by international students (which has its own issues), so Brits’ course fees are slightly subsidised.
Not good, but hey at least it’s not the US(!)
It’s not just the media who uses this term. According to this study which I’ve had a very brief skim of, the term “hallucination” was used in literature as early as 2000, and in Table 1, you can see hundreds of studies from various databases which they then go on to analyse the use of “hallucination” in.
It’s worth saying that this study is focused on showing how vague the term is, and how many different and conflicting definitions of “hallucination” there are in the literature, so I for sure agree it’s a confusing term. Just it is used by researchers as well as laypeople.