They way I've always heard it explained to me is that the flight schools that require a deposit up front are using that money to pay last month's bills, and as already mentioned with the financial trouble that we are going through there is a possibility that the company will fold and if so you are out of luck with the money you placed in, other than through legal action as already mentioned and even then you can only expect a fraction back plus legal fees. Basically a ponsi scheme.
10K for the private? What school/airport are you at now?
Also, I would agree with EngineOut on the glass training. Despite what people may try to sell you, you don't need this. You may hear people say that glass time is needed in order to get at job at an airline. This is false. In the past airlines have stated that they like canidates that have glass experience because it lets the company no that this person is trainable on systems, thats all. A few lessons on a G1000 airplane or if you are really cheap (like me) you can find a G1000 sim produced by ASA that does a really good job of simulating the interface. I used it and was able to pretty much jump right into a G1000 skyhawk. As far as I know, there is no set standard for "glass time" so everybody's defintion of this is different - Is time with the Aspen or Garmin retrofit package less/more valuable than G1000 time?