Unfortunately, these young people are not given the entire story, the information is not out there for the taking, they suffer from a situation where they are surrounded by family members, various school officials, and others, encouraging them to get their education and get in the workforce. The truth might be somewhere in this cloud, but if it conflicts with what the school is encouraging or wants it's likely to at least be de-emphasized and at worst kids are outright lied to. Now you add to that a young kid that has taken high school economics, but that doesn't really understand economics, compounding interest, deferments, cost of living 5 or more years later, where he is even going to be living, and so on, not to mention they have probably never paid back anything of value in their life, and it quickly gets unrealistic to expect these kids to make the right decisions and actually understand the decisions. This is something that impacts their lives so greatly that they may not be able to get out from the debt for 20 years or more, not to mention what happens if they lose their medical or get multiple checkride failures later on. Yeah, kids sometimes sign bad car purchase deals, and that is usually a good life lesson, but how many times over or for how long do they need to learn that they shouldn't have funded their aviation career with loans? 30 years? 40 years? For the rest of their lives? I understand that they should pay back the money if at all possible and I'm all for that, but it's a little more complicated than that.

It's like your grandma getting all of her life savings taken away by some con man. Sure, she signed the line, and maybe it was technically legal, but someone just took advantage of her, because she didn't understand the connotations of signing and the entire situation.

I'm all for making them pay back the money if at all possible. On the other hand, if it's not possible because the bottom fell out, the world wasn't as promised, the people that made those promises should be held accountable too. If there's no possible way for them to pay back the money, the loan companies should come after the school and they should pay the difference or what the student can not. I bet real fast the entrance requirements would go way up and we'd get people that actually want to be there, are capable of being there, and have the financial resources to be there. The school would also take job-placement seriously and the fact that you earn so little when starting out as a pilot would force them to come up with better solutions, more bridge programs, searching for partners that need pilots and understand the known quality of the institution, and so on.