Originally Posted by
Qotsaautopilot
Get started now on weekends and school breaks. Proceed with normal college path and get as many ratings as possible on school breaks. Hopefully have CFI by junior year in college and instruct as a part time job while finishing his degree. Make a couple bucks and build time instead of waiting tables. Get a degree in anything that’s not a joke and hit the regionals the day after graduation.
I feel like college teaches a person a lot about themselves and it’s an absolute blast if you don’t go to an all aviation school full of pilots. I wouldn’t skip it for ATP and an online degree.
I fully agree with this. Go to a normal college, have a fun social life with non aviation students, and do the aviation thing on the side. Best case scenario as stated above, he can get the CFI and hopefully instruct part time while in college. However if we have another 2008 when he gets to that point, which is what happened to me, at least he'll be waiting tables and still have a real college along with a social circle of other students his age to interact with. I lived in small towns and did the whole commuter/satellite/online college deal in 2004-10 and while it eventually all worked out, my late teens/early 20s was one of the most miserable times of my life because of it.