Yes - I do appreciate the graduate route is more debt burden these days. For what it's worth, I have a degree and my mates who didn't go to Uni are in similar well paid professional jobs now. They've tended to stay in the locality of home though and haven't had much life experience. Though I'd recommend university on the whole, in these circumstances I'd recommend getting a paid job (if possible aviation related) as soon as possible. If a medical etc stops you flying later you can always be a mature student, and in my experience these are the people who have been most successful (though it does take a LOT more committment to study later in life as other things take over, though this is no bad thing).