PhD for as little as $1290,66 p/a at a top 150 school.

[KSoul]

Respect your experiences and the difficulties you've seen. Our family has moved worldwide (non-military) while getting paid by US companies. Whether attending a university in that country or not seems like a non-factor in the OP's suggestion. However, I would not want to promote that the process is easy but doable. Picking the right company would be key. My sister works for P&G, and they promote the ability to travel the world while in a remote position. They start with one month, which expands per your interest and aspirations. She's lived in Germany (1 year), Poland (8 months), France (4 months),  and soon-to-be Singapore (goal 1 year), while her pay comes from the US.

Moving so one can attend a college is much different than an employer relocating you.

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Thank you everyone for sharing! This is great information!

I believe UP (University of Pretoria) offers a few postgraduate diplomas completely online, but I'm not aware of other PUBLIC universities offering full degrees.

University of Pretoria is where Elon Musk went before he decided to go to school in Canada (then transferred to UPenn). The current richest person in the world went to a South African University.

He is from South Africa. He was born into a rich family. I wouldn't say he's the poster child for the university.

Trying to see your point...

'Moving so one can attend a college is much different than an employer relocating you.'

No one is getting relocated in my example, so not sure what this even means. In all the locations my sister and I have lived, we could have attended the local universities (under the premise they have an online program open to foreigners) while earning income from the US. The OP suggested moving to a foreign country (SA) while earning income in their local country while working remotely. Multiple examples have been given, and you keep trying to infuse your unfortunate personal roadblocks as a universal fact to the difficulties of pulling it off. Plenty of options are available, and people are pulling them off. I don't know your industry, and you might be more limited in options, so this may be our disconnect. 

An additional reference point for me is my father, who has attended universities in Germany and China while working remotely, so I come from a position of belief that most things are possible with enough effort. We often hear how hard or impossible things are; my father says that usually, the person and not the obstacle stops them from pulling it off.