I run a small flying school in Auckland, New Zealand.
We simply don't take money up front. Each lesson is paid for at the completion of that lesson.
This means: If we don't keep the students happy, they don't come back next time.
Pretty simple.
To complete a basic CPL with us costs about NZ$60,000. Compare this to some of the Integrated schools who take a big deposit up front, to save you money, and yet they charge much more???
Sadly, the industry in NZ is dominated by 'factory' type flying schools who are all tapped into our governments 'student loan' scheme. This means that even though they charge significantly more than we do, we still can't compete because we can't offer the loan.
I could go on for days about the stories I've heard from students turning to after being through the bigger schools systems.
Here is just one: A student came to us with 53 hours flight experience, a $50,000 student loan debt so far, only 3 hours solo! and not even a PPL yet.
The thing is, this guy flew fine, not excellent, but perfectly adequate. His only problem was that his confidence had been destroyed by never being allowed to fly the plane solo. We got him back on track.