he enjoyed it very much. I really Really want a IFR rating, but man im broke. Wish the aviation industry offered student loan types for payment.
There used to be some private loan companies but their rates were astronomical and they usually needed collateral behind it. It was basically a personal collateralized loan. I heard of a few "signature loans" for folks with significant assets where the assets weren't officially collateral, long ago.
And of course, one can enroll in an Aviation college that's fully-accredited and that has flight classroom credits... you pay for your class and they either have their own Part 141 program or they partner with 141
Programs "officially" so flight time becomes part of your calculated "need" in your student loan request, which increases your chance for Pell Grants and authorizes much higher dollar loans over just the classroom and boarding costs.
But that kind of debt is scary. Not that most of the Country "gets it", nor really looks at the overall price tag vs potential earnings and how long it'll take to pay it back.
If you have the stomach for being broke and poor for a very long time (or even putting an enormous loan into forbearance because you're not getting paid well enough for the first ten years to eat, let alone make student loan payments), and still have it hanging over your head when you're well into your 40s if normal life pushes you to live like the Joneses and get married, buy the house, have the kids, and the white picket fence...
... you CAN get loans.
Don't forget to budget for a crashpad if you don't want to relocate. (Grin...)
It wasn't what I wanted out of life. Not the huge loans, nor the lifestyle and the furloughs which hit around the time I'd have been doing it -- just barely a couple years. Handwriting was on the wall and friends got hit. Hard.
Some people, it is what they want. No judgement bad or good on it, really.
Some people thrive in the airline environment and get lucky about which company they work for, and never get reset to the bottom of the senority list.
Some have train wreck jobs that spill over into their personal lives and destroy all their relationships, and leave them wandering all over for decades, chasing the jobs. Nomads who fly.
Doesn't matter if they're the happiest and best pilot in the world or the one passing line checks and sim rides with no joy or interest anymore, the seniority number is King in the airline biz.
Bizjet folks aren't immune from downturns either, especially fractionals. One friend was tossed out of NetJets off the Citation X, and this year they announced they were buying the largest new jet order Bombardier has ever had from one company.
Shows how screwed up that business is, in many respects. Cyclical. And I wonder if that friend ever heard that whole BS presentation by execs that, "We are all one big family here at MegaCorp!" You can't lay off family. It's such utter and deep Bravo Sierra. Anyone my age has heard it so many times it's stomach-churning. Barf. Tell me the real story,
Iike how your Sales staff ran out of buddies and family to call. Really. We know.
Anyway... There are loans out there. The bigger a loser you are when you apply, the bigger the loan they'll authorize. Make sure you're really really broke. It's based on "need" not "determination and drive And a business plan to pay it back"...
It's a great system.
