US State universities are not “no frills”. Even typical universities have many things which people consider necessities, such as a career center, safe science labs, a gym, a quad…
Many European universities are free or near-free, but it means you get what you pay for. If something breaks, too bad - it’ll get fixed when the budget’s in. There may not be much or any heat in winter. (1 week with a broken window and no heat makes you reconsider the concept of paying tuition.) One university I know had to start quick renovations because parts of the ceiling fell off and the rest seemed ready to follow. Some universities have electrical wires dangling from the ceilings. In some classes, students sit on the floor, or on the lecture hall’s steps. (This is justified by the fact about a third will drop out anyway so there’ll be space by January). There’s no grade repair, no tutoring, and 50% are expected to fail. Students go to class, copy -verbatim- what the lecturer says, and memorize it. Then they go home to their apartments/flats/bedsits. They may not make many new friends because most students at the university come from the public prep schools nearby.
You don’t have an adviser because typically you don’t have any choices - all your classes are prescribed and all are in your major. If you want to talk to your professor, you may or may not meet him/her. Office hours may or may not be held (even if announced). You are not really the professor’s priority. Organization may be chaotic because the support staff’s not there and the professors may not be well organized. Some students had problems with finals announced two days before the date they were supposed to be taken, or finals scheduled at the same time with no make up exam period scheduled.
You may have to wait for 1 hour in a line before you can enter the cafeteria and eat lunch. The library may close at 8pm, or 7pm, or even 6pm, and may not be open on weekends. There’s no career center and businesses don’t come to campus to recruit. There’s no tutoring center either. You may have to wait a month before you get a syllabus (or may never get one, depending on whether the country requires one or not, and how quickly). How you’re graded may be whimsical or may change during the semester because some facilities the professors expected aren’t free, or because something went wrong somewhere. The quality of the lecturers is great, their lectures are high-level material and the pace is fast. However, whether that’s delivered in a coherent manner or makes sense to the students is of no concern to them. Literally - it doesn’t enter the equation nor is it expected to, even though of course you may luck out (I remember one European professor expressing amazement that he was supposed to take into account his undergraduate students when lecturing, as in, what they’d understand, whether his delivery was optimal or even acceptable, etc.) They also wouldn’t give you an email address and certainly wouldn’t expect to be contacted by email.
Since failure is expected, no one is surprised if you’re among those who failed a couple classes, and so you repeat many credits - which you can do in “summer school”, in June, or by dragging the credits along and repeating them. Since you’re not paying, you don’t grumble and just promise you’ll do better, and, sometimes, you do. If not, you may progress to the next level still carrying that one unit you need to “take again”. For entertainment, clubs, sports, etc., you go into town (where you tend to have amazing discounts on everything, including transportation to the mountains, to the beach, to historical attractions…)There may be college sports but they’re less competitive than middle school sports, since most students are involved with the city. Students in fact may identify with their city but not with their university. All the socialization and entertainment parts are delegated to the city where the university’s located.
This does not apply if you happen to attend a handful of elite universities, like the Grandes Ecoles, Bocconi, etc.