On: I killed my teenager’s fancy college dreams

[albertshin]

Schools are a place for education but also a signalling tool for recruiting.

I imagine it's difficult to get recruited back in your home country with a degree from a foreign institution unless it's a pretty named school. The simple and harsh reality being that they may have no idea or the bandwidth to figure out how to interpret the grades you received or the education you had. (Of course, CS or hard sciences are likely an exception to this with portfolios or research results being pretty universal...)

And then there's the issue of visa issues should you attempt to work abroad post graduation in that country.

[song → albertshin]

I would tend to say that an experience abroad in fields like Arts is also extremely valuable and there are internationally recognized schools abroad. For example, the beaux arts in France or The Berlin University of the Arts.

So, while I agree with you that schools are a signaling tool for recruiting, this is not necessarily the case for non top schools in the US and given that a art education is extremely cheap in Europe, the money saved can also open doors later.

Visa issues are not that much of a problem as one might think as long as the student gets a master degree (most countries give a one year visa immediately after the obtention of a master that can then easily be renewed if the visa holder is employed). In general, master degrees make getting visa much easier. I'd also argue that returning to the US after a couple years of employments will give the graduate more opportunities because at that point they will have an edge by having had an international experience.