20 years in Australian GA and I've never - I mean never - seen what you're suggesting. Learning to fly helicopters isn't "expensive at times", it's always expensive; every single step of the way.
Students are amazingly resourceful in acquiring the readies: Stock shelves in the local supermarket at night, work behind bars, sweep hangars, work in depressing offices, beg & borrow from rellies ... One of my students somehow persuaded his wife that they should move back in with his parents, and then used the money from renting out their house to pay for the lessons. I'd like to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation
I used to teach a bloke who had a second job pumping petrol every weekend, and after a month he'd have saved up enough to pay for a flight. That guy truly earnt every moment he spent behind the controls, and he was the best prepared student I've ever seen when he turned up for a lesson.
And you come on to a professional pilots' forum to ask if we've seen students forced to finance their flight training with illegal flying. No self-funded student pilot was ever forced to fly, let alone do this to pay for it.