I think you need to weigh up the costs v time to recover those debts too.
If I was 48 the training might take 18 months or so it might be 2 years before getting the first job if I had the funds in place already. I'd then have 15 years to recover the £45k - £80k of training costs and loss of earning for 12/18 months.
So call it £100k would need to be recovered over 15 years on top of what you would have been earning in your current job.