I've never been to a US art school, I am on my way to my second year in an Israeli school (Shenkar).
Although I do not think it is justified by ANY means that any education costs as much as the author mentioned the RISD program costs ($200K+), I do know that art school for me has been a challenging and amazing experience, and here is why I would recommend it even if you do not want to be a designer, but just want to get your creative bearings rolling for a few years:
1. Assuming that you make it to a competitive program, you will most likely be with high quality people who are hard workers. Its been an absolute pleasure for me to kick it with some of the coolest and most creative people in Israel at my school.
2. Design is an enormous field, and although you can expose yourself to many things on the internet, what some schools are able to bring you (not necessarily all) is experience, expertise, a social life, hands on practice with your friends at school, critique by your teachers and classmates, the ability to see how you fare in contrast to others among many more things.
3. To branch off from that last point, since design is such an enormous field, you might think you want to do one thing, but after talking to so many teachers who are deep in the heart of the field you might switch. I was sure I would study to be a web designer/web dev, but all I want to do now is motion design.
4. This is your time to be creative. Do it within the most creatively inclined framework possible, with as many people who are like-minded as possible. There are not many opportunities for this kind of thing--if you go to design school you can mess around and be creative until you dont feel like it anymore, and then continue doing the real world as you did before.
I highly recommend you go to Art School.
Just dont spend a ton of money on it, be sure of the reasons you are doing it, and research the environment in which you will be studying for the next four years because you had better like it if youre going to be there for four years.
i agree with you on all fronts, and wanna just add that i am indeed considering dropping out so that i can run, if not sprint, towards my goals. for example, html is taught in the 3rd year at my school. by that time, i imagine i could not only learn html but create an entire portfolio of websites.