I hear there are some fairly decent offers beginning to emerge in the US though I believe students still need to pretty much pay their own way. From what I hear, loads of actual jobs though.
From what I can tell in the UK, there are fewer opportunities but those opportunities tend to involve a bit less financial risk. There's the Aer Lingus scheme which is open to UK applicants, basically an old-school sponsorship opportunity with everything paid for up front by the airline (if only there were more of these). Of course the BA FPP, Virgin FFP and Easyjet's latest offering are available to people from low-income backgrounds though the candidate takes the financial risk.
Shame the Med Charter operators don't currently have programmes open to all backgrounds. I hear that in the 90's Air 2000, Britannia et al used to be great fun, basically work hard, play hard.