Art schools can be insane. I think my buddy pays anywhere from 25-35k a year to go to The Art Institute of Colorado in Denver. That's absurdly high when you look at what the average graphic designer/animator whatever makes and the volatility of the industries most students enter.
Its crazy. For a bit more, you could go to the School of Mines in Golden, one of the best colleges in the country that has an excellent job placement rate. As Whiterabbit said, the technical and research jobs are the only ones that pay anywhere near something realistic for paying off mountains of school loans.
Being American means joining the debt circus, mostly. You can avoid it, but be prepared to make sacrifices.