In Germany the government pays your university time. You get about 800€ per month for housing and basic needs. At least if your family is not too well off.
50% of this have to be paid back, free of interest and capped at 10k€. That is not much, but keep in mind that we earn much less than Americans and have much higher taxes.
but this is support for living expenses, not tuition. if you are frugal you can get by not spending all of it. that's what i did. when it was time to pay, i was able to pay off all of it at once which afforded me another discount.
Similar in Norway. Except you have to pass exams to get part of it written off, if not you have to pay back 100%.