Small FBO flight schools are having a very hard time right now. There isn't any money out there for financing and the cost of flight training is outside of most peoples budgets. The academies are making it because either they're married up with a university (so they can get school loads and gov $$) or have a good amount of foreign students.

So my .02 cents would be to try an academy, only for the reason that you'd build time quicker in my opinion. (That's only my opinion, take it for what it's worth).