rudestuff
It depends where. UK tuitons are amongst the HIGHEST in all of Europe (and the world other than the US for that matter). Studying a degree in many European countries is peanuts compared to the cost of flight training. I studied a 5 year MSc level engineering degree, the combined tuiton of all those years cost LESS than my PPL. It's perfectly possible that many young teenagers want to be pilots but study for a degree instead because they can't afford the flight training.
On the other hand, 35-40k for a frozen ATPL is rather optimistic. That's what I paid for the CPL/IR alone, not accounting for PPL, time building, medicals, ATPL course and exams etc. A more realistic figure is 60-70k.