Mostly because Americans are terrified of foreigners and have absolutely no concept that the rest of the world isn't just a figment of Hollywood's imagination.

Mostly because Americans are terrified of foreigners and have absolutely no concept that the rest of the world isn't just a figment of Hollywood's imagination. I'm living in Budapest partly for low tuition - my wife is Hungarian, which makes it less random than it seems. Also, very few people in America can understand that life outside the United States could possibly be fulfilling. Or that tuition in much of Europe is free - I tell friends and family and they just boggle. There is such a strong feeling in the States that we have everything better than anybody else in the world. When we were talking about moving to Budapest last year, I was asked by the plumber, "But is there enough food there?" He honestly believed, apparently, that everyone else in the world is starving except for the well-known massive foreign aid we provide. (That's tongue-in-cheek; most foreign aid is money specifically earmarked for the purchase of American industrial output, so it's really a handout to American industry, not to foreigners - and it's a tiny fraction of our annual budget to start with, but many people in America think that's where a substantial portion of their taxes goes.)