Back in 1992 I got a DC headset, at the time I was wondering if I had spent too much money however the headset has excellent audio qualities and the durability of a main battle tank, my guess is it has spent well over 4500 hours GA flying and apart from replacing the ear pads and the foam over the microphone the headset has had no maintenance.
Just recently for my professional flying I have got a Bose A20, the ANR is very good and the headset seems to be durable and as you would expect first class audio but I doubt it has the longevity of the DC.
From a student pilot point of view the better the headset the less likelihood of repeated lessons due to misunderstandings during training and noise fatigue effecting performance. So while a Bose or top of the range DC might seem expensive the audio quality and durability are likely to make them cheaper than budget headsets in the long run.