so I was looking into schools just like you are only a short time ago, and it took me a bit to totally grasp how it really works. here's the break down:
if you go to pretty much any school for aviation they charge you an inflated tuition for some parts of the program. Its about 450-650 per credit hour depending on your residency, these are usually the flights.
your flights are charged separately, per hour, are no cheaper than doing outside the school and you have to pay the school for the credit on top of it. basically you have to pay all the same cost right up front for the training and then they tack a couple credit hours on top and charge you.
the GI bill, and I assume the guard, WILL pay for the minimum hours for each certification if you are in a part 141 school (i.e. 40 hours for the PPL) but you almost certainly will need more than that which will come out of pocket.
I believe private education loans will pay for flight training from a part 141 school, if you are willing to shoulder that debt. otherwise, guard or not, you will have to work while attending school to have a chance to complete the training with the curriculum.
you could do ROTC but the military's flight school notoriously difficult to get into. if you do ROTC it is not guaranteed you will become a pilot. you may find that you go to school, commission as an officer for 8 years flying a desk and never fly a plane. IF you do get into flight school you pretty much did the whole deal for free and will have a wonderful career ahead of you.
the part 141 college near me does most of the flight training in the summer and regular classes during the year, which kinda sucks because it would be hard to retain skills for 8 months and without doing it at least once in a while through the year.
part 141 schools do have the added benefit of giving you something like 250 hours credit from the FAA so you come out with a CFI and almost 500 hours. then you need to instruct for 1000 hours or so to be a professional pilot.
embry riddle is different in the way they charge, so if you live on campus it costs something like 50 grand a year total. military will pay $12,000, if you have great grades the school automatically gives you a $12,000 scholarship and you can get $5500 in grants usually if you are in the military because you would be considered an independant student. so you would have to come up with about $20,000 a year to go, best case scenario.
I am eligible for the GI bill, but, I have come to the conclusion that even with that I am better off just busting my ass working and paying as I go that way im not tied to a curriculum I might not be able to keep up with financially. then, if I ever wanted, I could go to school and get a degree in almost anything. everyone says the airlines dont usually care what the degree is as long as you have one and they are moving away from even requiring a degree.
If I were fresh out of highschool I would join the guard, go to school to become an air traffic controller, and work doing that for a while. get paid REALLY good money and use that and the network of people you meet on the job to get flight training. I think if someone were to do that they would have the college degree they need, be able to financially attain the necessary certifications to be a pilot expediently, have a ton of valuable experience, and always have a second career to fall back on.
