Getting Transcripts From College Wanting Money (maybe)

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Agreed. Moving abroad is hilariously expensive. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvzTOmEPYyE and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcG5WuJ6edo This is not something to be undertaken simply because you may or may not have a college who thinks you owe them money. You've got to want it for serious reasons to not only pay the various associated fees but also to deal with the extreme hassle of all the red tape.

Getting the visa to live and work is an often underrated aspect of moving abroad. Student visas are bad enough (not only are you limited to a certain number of hours of employment per week, but employers are wary of hiring someone who is far less likely to stick around than a 'native'), but I think there can often be this idea that if you have a degree from a country, there's some sort of shortcut to permanently settling there. There are, in some countries, 'pathways', but by no means are they shortcuts. The hard road, maybe.

And then there's the culture shock, which, unless you've lived abroad and know what to expect (a 6-month exchange in college, or 2-month holiday, don't count), can be quite the shock. Many people never get over it.

Since we're talking about the UK, they've been going nuts raising their visa fees in the last eight years, and closing the gates on post-qualification work visas. A distance degree will not get you the student visa you need to study and build a network in the UK for your post-qualification job, and an in-person degree will be expensive enough you're better off just paying your outstanding fees to your American university. To study in the UK, you also need to prove a substantial level of savings, which if you have them, just pay off your outstanding tuition.