Originally Posted by
UnlimitedAkro
its because the people at ERAU think they are going to make a ton of money and they arent smart enough to realize they will have thousands in student loans and tiny paychecks. Im a 3rd year airline pilot that is pretty much on welfare who graduated from ERAU. Not worth 100,000 in student loans at all (and I have over 100,000 in grants and scholarships that paid for nearly half).
It wont be long until the students get smart enough to realize they wont make any money for 5 years. And with airlines cutting pay in these times, they might not make any money for 10 years by the time they graduate. Airlines cut pay after Sept 11th, but it never went back up. Now they are cutting pay for fuel. It wont go back up. This industry is going down the crapper and if you think you should pay a ton of money to go to riddle or UND or some school to put you ahead of the game, you are nuts.
Become a doctor and buy your own airplane.
Wow- A little bitter, are we?
I also graduated from ERAU. I enjoyed the experience and am happy I made the investment, even if I'm not flying for a living. My student loans run a total of $60k. It hurts- that's for sure.
After 9/11 we all thought that Riddle would fold. I mean, who would go to an aviation school with all that was going on in the world at that time? Things dropped off in the summer of '02 (I was furloughed as a Riddle CFI) and then the following September I had a full load of students. What I'm getting at here is that even if things are slowing down at Riddle for the moment, they will be busy in the near future.
I was on the "fixed price" system. I got everything from private through Multi for $26k. Tuition was, I think, around $450 per credit hour. Not sure I would pay what they are charging now.
Cheer up, man! You have a job, you are free to come and go as you please, and you live in the greatest country in the world. Things could be much, much worse.