A 4 year university degree for a commonwealth supported student is under 40k. Medicine/dentistry might approach 60k. They’re still a lot cheaper than a pilots license.
You’d be a fool to outlay that much on a pilots license these days knowing how easily you could be out of a job. I don’t think many of these tertiary educated individuals would have been stood down or made redundant during covid. Most of them would have worked from home and if they were let go, they would have found a higher paying job a few months later.