The $180k is not ERAU, it's Auburn. An AS degree from ERAU right now is $275,000. Auburn's flight fees alone right now are $97K minimum to an MEI.

Read the Newsweek article I referenced. Further, I was responding to a comment about 100-200k “generic and unmarketable” degrees, not specifically about flying.

That’s an insane outlier, even among people who went to aviation schools

They don't allow people to BK college loans for very, very good reason... it allows unsecured school loans.

Most college grads are broke and unemployed by definition. If given a choice between getting whatever job they could and starting the long grind of paying off loans OR just filing BK right away, you know what most would do. The BK would be off their record before age 30.

End result of that would be mass defaults and no more unsecured loans, so those who need it most would be shut out.

Risk you take, or you could just go get a desk job. But the risk of industry hiccups impacting pilot hiring in a large negative way is pretty low by historical standards.

Yeah, predatory lending is the norm these days, negative interest rates here we come.

At the same time... There a very few debts these days that a person acquires against their will.

This is nothing compared to the people enrolling in Republic's program. The interest rates are variable (which menas they will only increase) and it's just flight school with no degree. They don't even know that they have no chance at the big six (or most LCC's) without college. They are just staffing a regional. I tried to explain these facts to them on that thread, but I eventually gave up because no one would listen. The only caveat is that those loans would be bankruptable. Still no job at the big six, but also the debt would be gone.

Their credit reports would also be shot, which would be a damn shame once potential employers start pulling them.

Really? I didn’t think you could discharge any student debt anymore, federal, or private.

Depends on if it's an actual student loan.

If it's a loan arranged by a business (ie an airline) to train future employees, that might not be structured as a student loan.

Just to minimize speculation, this link has the numbers:
https://www.valuepenguin.com/student...ost-of-college

To summarize:
Public 2 yr public 4 yr public out of state Private

Tuition $3,570 $9,970 $25,620 $34,740

This is the average annual tuition across the country, not including anything else.

The link also has a graph that compares average tuition over the years, showing a steep increase, but it doesn't say whether the dollars have been adjusted to present-day to account for inflation (I'd assume they are, based on prior research, but not gonna dig it back up).

In my personal experience, a lot of kids thought any degree would be a free ride and in high school and college the value of the trades were greatly diminished. As a civil engineer it was pretty normal to meet a plumber or electrician who was making more than me and quite honestly, I thought their jobs required more critical thinking than most of the non-engineering classes I took in college (I do a lot of my own electrical and plumbing). But I digress...