Howdy. 20y/o here. Worked hard since I was twelve both in and out of school, saved my money + I have parents who are stable enough to help me on my feet. Graduated HS with 30 college credits knocked down for free (dual enrolled) and was fortunate enough to have my parents pay for me getting my PPL. I followed the advice of damn near every person I interacted with and went to Auburn. My one year at Auburn getting my IR cost me approx. $42k in student loans (after my parents burned through our college fund).
AU was an out of state decision, if I had stayed in state we would be looking somewhere in the range of $25-30k for the cost of this year. Regardless of any of that if I had stuck it out at AU I'd graduate about 160-170k in debt, and in state+pt.61 lessons (where I switched) will run me about 100k all in. How the hell do you save for that? The answer is you don't. You take out loans.
My friends who made the "right" decision to leave their state to go to AU and receive training will be making approx. $1600/month minimum payments for about 12 years after they graduate. I'll be joining them with approx. $1000/month payments over the same timeframe.
Once we graduate we're looking at regionals/CFI'ing for 2-10ish years. Post tax take home of what? 3000 a month? MAYBE 4?
Listen, I love the Dave Ramsey advice, but some of us are following it all and still going to be at the very least
inhibited by this. I'm not trying to say I have it better or worse than anybody before me, but I am trying to help you recognize sometimes certain obstacles are just damn near insurmountable and millenials/gen z are not just a bunch of avocado toast eating starbucks drinking yuppies wondering why we can't lease a Bimmer rent a 2 bed in DUMBO and get breakfast out everyday
