An investment?
I have paid for a type rating. I didn't enjoy writing the cheque and I would have loved to find an airline willing to pay, but I didn't.
However, to compare my situation to a friend of mine;
I spent in the region of £80k all in over 20 months to be a 737 first officer. By 24 months after starting training my pay is equal to that of my friend.
He spent 5 years doing a masters in IT and now has a job with a well known firm in the city (London). He works Monday to Friday, doing similar lengths of days to me and has the same number of days annual leave. I work 5 on, 4 off most of the year.
His course cost £25,000 over 5 years, so I spent £55,000 more than him, but I started earning 3 years earliler. I will earn much more than £55,000 in that time. We are both equally happy as we are both in the careers we wanted. I also have a friend who has just qualified as a Lawyer and she also took 5 years to qualify with similar costs to my first friend.
I guess my point is that, while having to pay for a type course is a real shock and that I firmly believe trainining on a company's equipement should be at the company's cost, it is not a bad investment.