That's not too terribly different from a lot of places in the US. Tuition for in-state students at public universities can run $2,000 to $3,000 USD per semester, and every penny (and then some extra) is covered by unsubsidized student loans which reasonable interest rates. After getting a 4 year degree, tuition did nothing to my pocket book and roughly 6 months after graduation I had to start paying $140/month, which is a tiny, especially in comparison to the higher salaries I got after graduation.

That's not really accurate anymore.

Without assuming too much, I'm not certain when you went to school, based on those numbers it seems a while ago.

2013-2014, average in-state tuition for 4-year public universities is just over 5,000 per semester, and that DOESN'T include housing, meals, books and other incidentals - it assumes you only pay for classes, nothing else.

Wyoming was the lowest average in 2013-14, at $4,404 for the year (2202 per semester), and under $9,000 when you include housing and meal plan - not bad, really.

Anymore, even with Pell, state grants and federal subsidized loans, students still have to come up with 1,000-3,000 per semester. So, that's where the unsubsidized and parent plus loans come in.

Source - my own institutional research at a community college for the last two years.

The main difference is that in Québec, tuition for all Universities is around that much. Tuition for a BA at McGill is $2,282.10 per year for local students, and McGill is arguably either the best or second-best school nationally.

For comparison, U of T in Ontario comes to around $6,000 p.a., or $13,000 for Engineering.

Quebec has low tuition, at least in part, because students are ready to fight tuition increases: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Quebec_student_protests