I am a soon to be graduate from Daniel Webster College. Like UND, the flight program is expensive and it won’t give you much of an advantage once you graduate. What it will give you is a much better education in aviation than you can ever receive at many FBOs. It is that education that you will be able to demonstrate at an interview that will get you a job, not the name of your school, or type of degree. It will also put you in an environment where you will talk about aviation all day. You will analyze every theory and aspect of flight to an unimaginable degree. You can literally get into a 30 minute conversation about the best way to do an engine runup with a professor. Then you will go to lunch with your friends and discuss the new Sklylane. The environment is great and you will meet some amazing people.

However, you can get a similar experience at a good FBO for a much lower cost. I got my Private Pilot Certificate at an FBO before I went to DWC and that FBO was great. I received a solid education from experience instructors. I now work at an FBO that is the exact opposite. The quality of the instructors is horrible and the education students (not my students) receive is poor. The problem is, as a new student, you will not be able to judge the quality of an FBO.

For me, I know that my education at DWC has put me miles ahead from many others who went the FBO route, but I also know many who know just as much and more who have gone the FBO route and saved a lot of money. You have to decide if the environment and predictable quality of education is worth the higher (much higher) cost of going to UND or any other collegiate flight program. Whatever you decide, make sure you do not rely on one source for your flight training. As someone else mentioned UND as well as every flight school and FBO has a bubble that sometimes isolates you from the industry. You have to make sure you get a varied experience in your flight training.