Intrepid
Entry to university courses are NOT regulated by the professions but by the individual university. They are set at a level which the university believes will ensure that a student who attains that level will be able to cope with the courses.
There are some universities that use a different method. For example the University of Tasmania will not allow any student to start a law degree unless they have successfully completed a year in another degree course. Even then the failure rate at the end of first year law is about 2/3 of the course.
In a discussion with the Dean of the faculty in Tasmania he told me that the faculty was constantly resisting attempts by the profession to alter the courses to suit the profession. In fact the faculty felt that it had a strong need to protect the academic value of the course from the wish of the profession to turn it into vocational training.
Would you advocate allowing all those with the intellectual ability and cash to pay for the tuition into medical school if the jobs for those doctors didn't exist at the other end??
Emphatically YES. I believe in free choice - not a "guided choice" to ensure you meet a defined need.
However, back to the topic. I don't think there is any way you can regulate the number of CPL students in the way you suggest. That many will not find jobs is immaterial - there are no promises in any career - why should aviation be different?
Please do not misunderstand me. I am not in favour of flying schools selling some rosy image of the profession with debatable promises made for work at the end of the training.
However, if a person believes they have what it takes to be a commercial pilot (and lets be honest with the barriers to achieving the desired end you have to be forever besotted with flying to even consider it) then they should not be stopped.
Incidentally, I don't think it is a bad idea for PPL pilots to consider commercial training even if they don't want to ever be a commercial pilot. The training will lead to an improvement of skills.
For the record I do not work as a flying instructor nor do I ever intend to. The company I work for does have a flight training division but not where I am based. I have nothing to do with that division.