No, did not pay off. Moved from airline industry into a parallel aviation job, but not piloting. I did more school and gained more experience to get to that point, but the basic "aviation degree/flight training" to get to an airline absolutely did not pay off.

Most of us realize how crazy this idea is now.

You won't be paying off 70-100K, it'll be at least 100-140K with interest. Think of what you can do with that money?

By far the best idea if you still want to get into the game is to get a decent job, scrape by and go to flight school while working or when you can. The value of this is huge in terms of not being under the burden of debt.

It sounds like you love flying. Have you ever stopped and asked yourself if "love flying"=airline pilot? As if airline pilots are the only people that can love flying?

As far as national academy, it has the word "national", so it must be good.