It's possible, although increasingly uncommon, to receive a stipend for grad school. And most American citizens don't pay "rack rate" for college; the published rates of tuition affect primarily foreign students while everyone else gets some form of scholarship. But I took the GRE, didn't get into USC, didn't rack up $200k of debt in two years and did get a job where the guy making the coffee for $6 an hour had the same degree from the same program that I didn't get into. And one of our employees did ring up $130k in debt just to get the acceptable schooling for the medical board so she could get a license doing the thing she was already licensed to do in Brazil. Student loan debt now outweighs all other kinds of debt in the United States. This is due in no small part to the fact that it's completely undisbursable short of death.