Where would the 30k come from
At least one school, not a million miles away from the guy who started this thread, used to be run as ancilliary to a larger aerospace business, and seemd to be at least partly there to give the test pilots more time in the air and less at their desks.
In those days the typical instructor was a white haired test pilot who'd trained at the Empire Test Pilot School - he'd typically spend not very many hours a week flying Hercs around with both fans on one wing switched off, say; more hours a week than he'd like on paperwork; and get to fly students around in 152s for relaxation. It probably helped that the boss had a personal mission to promote flying and wasn't trying to make vast amounts of money from the school.
Dunno if the business model has changed in recent years, but there are fewer white haired instructors around - except at weekends, when some of the retired guys come in to do a bit of instructing for fun.
[I have to say that as a student the idea that the guy teaching you had decades of experience of flying all sorts of aircraft in dodgy states of design or repair, and had lived through it, had a certain attraction compared to the young lads just trying to get through the hours until their first "real" job.]