It’s mainly a lever used by students to complete an endorsement without self funding, and it’s also a lever used by many training organisations to simply keep themselves in business. Without all these programs half the training providers wouldn’t exist today. However it appears to be contributing to an oversupply of graduates, and increasing the debt many in this country carry. It’s a nasty debt too with some ugly indexation and fees attached.
Completing a FIR or IFR rating is fairly demanding and full on, the added workload for the Diploma side is a massive distraction, but if you don’t have the financial means to do it solo, then you just need to suck it up and push though it.