The point about being £50k in debt....no, you DON'T have to take the debt. However, I deliberately tried to guess at what the average fATPL costs to obtain. There are some who have paid >£100k, some who have no debt at all (fortunately, me!) and most are somewhere in the middle....My guess is that average would be C.£50k...
And again, I agree Gnirren...The Ts and Cs on offer for this job are no longer anywhere near as good as they should be when you consider the job. But it IS simple supply and demand....it IS still an aspirational job for many people and whilst there are [more than] enough people to meet demand, there will always be someone to drive down Ts and Cs.
Newbies CAN NOT influence this, other than by falling on their own swords, but no-one in their right mind would do this. The only people that can are those IN the jobs. But as you very rightly say "There will always be a reason to keep your head low and your tongue brown"
Right now FR IS the only game in town, so you play O'Learys game, or not at all....what would you choose, really, if you had £50k of debt [rhetorical question]???