With respect to the loans and their ability to be discharged in bankruptcy. Those that are subsidized by the federal government are with you for life. The government pays them if you don't. They then attempt to collect from you. As far as I know these loans are only given to college and university students for credited classes. One of the other points on this is the issue of getting a federal loan for flight training at an aviation college or university. I know that at ERAU they at least used to list the flight courses as credited classes to facilitate the obtaining of the federal loans. I believe that ended when they went off of a fixed price model. I'm not sure how it would work with variable hourly flight training costs. I don't have experience with the other collage flying programs, but others can comment on details.