Unless they really -need- to be taught in a classroom
I don't know if that was supposed to be a slight dig
, but I agree, during many of the hours of sitting in a class I sometimes wished that they just gave us the material to self study; for certain subjects there wasn't much benefit derived from hearing it from someone at the front of the class; but that said there were many times that the instructors filled in many gaps with useful experience. It would be interesting to do an analysis of the number of first time passes and grades between an intensive ground school setup vs a home study approach.
But as I mentioned before many operators like dealing with an established FTO as they will get a report from the school on the candidate, yes, you could argue that the report is not worth the paper it's written on, but on the other hand the school is not doing itself any favors regarding it's reputation if they recommend mediocre students to their operators. So with that bit of knowledge sometimes it's better to maybe pay slightly extra if it gives you boost in the initial stages of your career.