Looking at the SOAR social media pages, a lot of the students at SOAR seem to be... older and/or rougher. I'm sure a lot of them, before signing up to the course wouldn't really have an opinion of being trained in GA aircraft vs RAA aircraft. It's only when they hop online and read other people complaining that their ill feelings are validated and so they start to complain as well. For new students never being involved in aviation at all, it's basically a whole new world. One way to get ahead for these new students is to quickly adopt views from what they read online. It is an easy way to feign experience/knowledge and mitigate feelings of inferiority.
This phenomenon is also present with the CASA exams. When someone fails, they log in online and are able to see people complaining about CASA on a certain Facebook group therefore it validates their feelings that their exam fail wasn't their own fault for not studying properly, it was CASAs (defence mechanism)... I found the 7 CPL exams challenging, I failed four times, but never did I think it was the fault of the exam. Maybe I'm just on the same wavelength as Gavin.
So if the instructors or marketing team at SOAR specifically told, or just mislead students into believing they would be conducting training in GA 172 it is a matter for the Department. There were a bunch of dodgy RTOs at the inception of the loan system which resulted in specific legislation regarding advertising of training courses. But if the students were silly enough to sign up for a course WITHOUT RESEARCHING, assessing value etc (which is one of the obligations before signing up to a VET Student Loan course), getting half way in, failing CASA exams, blaming CASA, going online and getting riled up from other people complaining, they ought to suck it up.
These full time VSL courses are hard... by nature of being large schools, you can get lost in the system. You need to make sure you are getting flights booked regularly. You need to make sure you are thinking about what's coming up next and pre-studying for it without having to be told to. Re attempts and lesson repeats aren't covered by the student loan. Flight test fees, medical, ASIC etc aren't covered as well. It is stressful. But this is the reality of a full time course at a big school.