It doesn't have to be that way. I spent around $60-70k for my B.S. Flight Operations, CFII-MEI. Thanks to scholarships, part-time jobs in school, etc., I had $25k in student loans upon graduation. Down to $20k now 15 months after graduation. It's not impossible to get a quality aviation degree for less than $100k.

Yes, I know most of my peers in the IT degrees are debt-free and rocking it right now. But they fly a desk.