Why on earth is this country so expensive?

yeah the US has no solid equivalent to the NHS,so there you've def got a point, but as for the education system/prices, most american students pay much less than the up front rates, most good schools (BU, Harvard, UPenn, Columbia, UVA, UChicago, etc) make so much money from their endowments and donations that they give out loads of money to students, so the student ends up with lots of living allowances, grants and scholarships (not necessarily merit based) which drastically reduces the price. there is also the 'in-state' system, where if you gain residency to the state in which the university is in, the tuition fees are reduced by at least a fifth, if not more (though this only applies to state run schools, but there are some really good ones, UPenn, UChicago, etc.).

and yes, cost of living is more than what you pay at the till, but as far as i can tell, it's still WAY more over here than it is in the states. in boston, which has one of the highest costs of living in the US, next to NY and SF, you can get a good sized one bedroom flat (living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom), relatively central, for around £4-500 per month plus bills. here your much more likely to around £7-900 per month plus council tax and bills.

and so while everything here costs effectively twice as much (cigarettes, booze, milk, bikes, cds, etc), one's wages are often the same as what you would get in the states. at my shop in boston i made $14 an hour. here i get £6-ish? my wife (working in architecture) made twice over there what she is making here, and she had LESS qualifications.

but all that said, i'm still trying to get on a visa that will lead to residency :)

I am sure everything you are saying is true as you clearly have more experience and knowledge about this that me but although housing is a big part of living costs I don't think it is fair to compare house prices in the UK with the USA as we are a small island with a large population so house prices and rents will always be high here.