Ask yourself this question,
Do I want to be a Professional Pilot?
If the answer is Yes, I would suggest you do everything you can to be that.
What do you need to be an AEROMED pilot? Or a Survey Pilot, or a Chief Flying Instructor?
The basic fact is, if you don’t have a CPL, you won’t get a flying job. Without a MECIR, you won’t get an AEROMED job and without ATPL subjects you won’t get an airline job.
Do you need a degree? Not at the moment.
What portion of the degree is HECS, and what portion do you have to pay for? From the chats I’ve had with new guys/girls, it’s about 50/50 split. So it costs $60k for the flying, and the other $60k is paid via HECS.
Outside of the Degree you have to pay for the CASA Exams. There’s a couple of Thousand dollars.
When I did mine, Griffith Uni, 2000 -2004, they basically split the 7 ATPL subjects in half to create content. The actual amount of “Aviation Management” was 2 subjects out of a 3 year degree, very light on.
Like others have said, do a Business/Finance/ IT degree or a trade and learn to fly on your own.
Last year we all learnt how narrow our skill set is, there are a few guys/girls with banking/finance backgrounds that where able to get back into the finance sector and now continue to do it part time while we are back to flying.
They are making more than the $30/hour I made driving a van.
Good luck