Some US student loans work this way with income-based repayment. However there are plenty of gotchas: It only applies to federal loans. Many people with large amounts of school loans > $15k-20k/year for 4-5 years can't actually get this much in federal loans, and also only a subset of what they can get has subsidized interest. I'm not sure whether loan interest continues to accrue normally in the period where payments are reduced. I think this depends on the type of federal loan and there are quite a few. Some are completely unsubsidized (i.e., accrue interest while in school).
Some US student loans work this way with income-based repayment. However there are plenty of gotchas: It only applies to federal loans. Many people with large amounts of school loans > $15k-20k/year for 4-5 years can't actually get this much in federal loans, and also only a subset of what they can get has subsidized interest. I'm not sure whether loan interest continues to accrue normally in the period where payments are reduced. I think this depends on the type of federal loan and there are quite a few. Some are completely unsubsidized (i.e., accrue interest while in school).