bcrosier,
You are right in your analysis of how it can all go very wrong, but that doesn't mean it can't go very right as in any career choice. I think the key is not to incur debt to attain your goal and to prepare with an education that delivers course corrections. The aviation degree is a non-starter and incurring huge debts in the process starts one in servitude. In my son's case I described him as an excellent student, with a desire to explore aviation as a potential. Because I retired from the Air National Guard, we know that option is achievable, though he will have to earn the UPT slot on his own merit. With academic scholarships and GI bill he can graduate debt free and hopefully earn that slot. If not, well he still has valuable work experience and a degree to build on. If he does get one, he flies heavies four or five years and is in position to network the unit's members to preferential hiring. He does have a dad that will have had 36 years with a major and a mom that worked many years ago for FedEx. Not a typical applicant, but the key is to focus on the objective, and to stack the odds. Too many people have believed the siren song that flight time and an aviation degree equates to major airline job. For many it has worked, for many more it hasn't. Excellence is excellence, it can't be taken away, it presents opportunity. Opportunity is risk, but in a few years with dramatic retirements in our career, risk can be managed. At no time in my lifetime will there have ever been such opportunity as is coming in a few years.