I don't necessarily disagree with the meat of your post, but as a point of order, the tuition fees for a US citizen (or any other international student) are more in the region of $30,000 to $50,000 per year.
The $12,000 fee rate is for UK students only (and all my course mates bitched about paying even that).
What's interesting about the UK is that ther is a maximmum allowable fee any course or insitution can charge - £9,000 per year. As such, every course and university, from medicine at Cambridge through to performing arts at the local polytechnic charges that fee.
Students always say it's a rip off, and yet almost every course hits capacity and there are often tens of applicants a place, so the market suggests that this is if anything undervalued.
For my part, I'd say that some courses represent 'good value' and some don't. Certainly few would argue that racking up £40,000 in debt for a mathematics, hard science or engineering degree from Cambridge or Oxford or is a better deal than £40,000 worth of debt for a degree in Rap History from Salford University...
