SAS said "There speaketh the PPL's." Well, could that possibly be because this
is a PPL forum
As for the notion of there being plenty of money around for people to fly I can only ask - so where are they?
Assuming that there are plenty of rich (ie 'quality'
) students, what are they going to do the minute they qualify? If they are canny business people, they will either buy an aircraft or a share in one and wave goodbye to the school, avoiding the hassle of trying to hire through a club and minimum hire-time limits.
There was one very well heeled student training at the same time as me and he had bought his brand new aircraft even before he had qualified. Sure, he pops in now and again for a cuppa and a chat - and he'll probably be back for his revalidation, but the club isn't going to make any more money out of him than they do out of any other student. It seems to me that you'll need an awful lot of high-rollers to replace the plethora of working Joe's who fly as often as they can afford.
The problem with flight instruction is that it is squeezed at one end by high hardware operating costs and at the other by students with finite resources. Sadly it is the instructor who is expected to take up the financial slack.