It's been awhile, but I remember that University of Illinois had a flight program as an elective. That way you can get a degree in something besides aviation as a back up and have all your certificates by the time you graduate.

Their program is closing down.

I asked earlier about LETU, It was horrible. the campus is nice and so are the people, but whatever you do do not come in with any ratings already. If you come in with your instrument like I did, they do not care about you and make you pay for extra courses that you do not need. For the first semester you will have to do an intro flight course to get in their program. you will fly a citabria and get a tailwheel rating. It will cost over $6,000!!!! $200 an hour for the plane and $90 ish for the instructor. they do not tell you that each flight has a minimum of an hour of ground before and after that you are paying for... about $400 each flight hour... little high??? do not even get me started with the multi engines... $400 an hour not including the instructor. students told me they have spent over $20,000!!!!!!! on just their multi com add on..

BTW I left the program quickly after my first semester.

Does anyone know if enrollment at college aviation programs are up or down?

At letu enrollment was the highest they've seen in years. last year, however a lot left after the first semester for various reasons.

If you want to fly - don't do it at Embry. Total cost of Flight and a degree there is a quarter million dollars. It's much easier to get a degree in whatever you want then get your certificates elsewhere.

Neither. Get a non aviation related degree, go to an fbo or mom and pop flight school. Dont be fooled by the marketing if ERAU, UND or or "aviation colleges". Same goes for ATP, skip it and save your money but ATP certainly isnt as expensive (but is only flight trainign.). If i could do it all over again, id go to UW Madison, engineering and do my flight training at the local airport.
I went to the local airport (msn) and it was great! But got a degree in aernautics through ERAU online. Actually it wasnt too expensive comoared to UW, but its the degree i regret. Its not useful outside of aviation, and only helps gets u into an interview but isnt a deal breaker except at the majors. How you get along with the people, who you know and your flight time is most important.


Lets talk numbers- ERAU degree and training 250k, UW wi and training and local airport, close to 100k.
If you think thats worth the 500 hours of flight it shaves off your "atp" requirements just to go make 20k a year at a regional then you need to rethink being a pilot. You live and die off smart decisions.
Im serious, you will regret it if you got to ERAU or similar.

Down quite a lot. Many are closing that i. Know of, minnesota stcloud state for example. Freinds at U of M mankato, UND, SDSU, ERAU all say the same thing. Its gone down badly. Wouldnt be surprised to see Purdue and ERAU and maybe UND be the only ones in a few years.

I went to ISU, probably the least expensive training out there. When Its time to go to a regional, they could care less what school you went to. Some of the riddle peeps thought they were superior since they paid 5X as much. I didn't think so. Also I saw plenty of nice people leave the regional because their student loan far exceeded there take home pay. Talk about putting yourself in a corner. I'll say it a again, nobody cares were you went to school, it will not change your upgrade time or time to get to a major etc.

I went to ERAU and got a business degree and flew off campus. Even the business degree is $$$. One plus side to an aviation university is you will have a lot more contacts in the aviation community than you would have if you go to a "non aviation" university.