Graphs and such aside, a little creativity goes a long way and can dramatically reduce costs. I got my Private/Instrument at a local flight club while attending community college and living at home. The credits from the local college and the ratings eliminated two years at the much more pricey four-year institution. Getting decent grades (3.5 GPA) at the community college got me into Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society and brought a humdinger of a scholarship at the university. All said and done, 0-MEII, bachelor's degree, and two associates degrees in 5 years for between $60-70k. I worked a few part time jobs on the side and my parents were able to finance some interest-free loans (I was very fortunate to have that opportunity). My first flight lesson was summer of 2008 and I'll be student-debt free at the end of this month.

Kind of sounds like I was blowing my own horn there. I didn't mean it that way. I'm just saying that there's no need for people to be getting buried by debt like this. At the same time I was going through training, some of my peers were piling up 100k+ student loans!!! They are smart, professional people who could easily have gotten the grades I did, worked the same part time jobs (probably much better jobs), and attended community college to cut costs. I didn't have any more talent or ability than they did. But they got suckered into the fancy zero-to-hero university or ATP programs that cost more than a fine piece of real estate. Never, EVER, accept the cookie-cutter degree program method of education without seeing how you can do it differently.