Originally Posted by
acpeck6
Should I finish college or ratings first? First some background info, I'm 21 with a PPL, and Instrument rating and want to become a career pilot. I have less than a year of college under my belt, and a considerable amount of debt from flight training. I haven't flown in around 9 months because I can't afford it. Im at a point where I cannot and shouldn't take out any more loans for flying. Ive decided that I should focus on getting my degree first. This will allow me to get a better job to pay off my debt and save for the rest of my flight training. The only other option would be working full time at a min. wage job until I get the $.
Any thoughts on finishing college first?
Thanks!
I was in a very similar situation 15 years ago. I left college in a pro pilot degree with 1 year and a PPL under my belt to wrap up all my ratings at
https://www.aviator.edu/flight-school and then instructed full time for a year before deciding to go back to college full time(back then "the aviator" didn't offer college degrees). It allowed me to test out of many classes once returning with all(commercial multi instrument & MEI/CFII/CFI) my ratings. So I ended up sitting in school for 6 semesters and leaving with a BS, but start to finish it took 5 years. I took loans for mostly everything, which thankfully I've paid off. The only regret, I started flying/college at 21. I would have liked to have started earlier.