Originally Posted by
Clare Prop
For that amount of money, that is normally only accessible to people in the very top percentiles in ATAR, there should be a very high bar to entry.
The only other courses that can borrow that much money are medicine, dentistry and vet.
The AVI50219 diploma runs about $82k. The loan limit for non-aviation courses is about $109k at the moment. There's plenty of non-aviation degrees that could be completed within the cap with CSP unit fees around $1k/semester.
Granted, most student pilots won't do this and would jump straight into the $40k advanced diploma for the MECIR, or just be enrolled in a three year degree program.
For what it's worth, I think the degree programs are not worth it, but the diploma/advanced diploma have their place. I know many pilots who simply wouldn't have had the opportunity to pursue a flying career if they couldn't access a student loan.