Hello, Kathimalati--Thank you for reading! I've also been in the European school system. It seems that every system has its pros and cons. The government in the U.S. does give out some low-interest loans--but only a certain amount total for each person. For someone who used loans to finance 11 years of school (bachelors, masters, doctorate), and for those us who didn't have parental assistance, we may 'use up' the amount allowed for low-interest loans and so not be able to spread it over the 10+ years. So then we might resort to the higher-interest loans. That's also the case in fields of graduate study where we have to work low-wage assistance jobs in our fields while we're graduate students in order to get jobs in our field after we graduate. So in that case, we're not able to work some higher-paying job while we're in school...Or in some of our cases, if we go to a Eurpoean school from the U.S., we're only allowed to work a certain amount while residing in the European country, and the allowable income isn't enough to cover our expenses, so again we may have to turn to the higher-interest loans to make ends meet. But every person's situation is different, so I'm afraid I can't speak to everyone's.