Portsharbour,
That was the maths I went through before I did my SSTR. SSTR gets a lot of bad press because it is the only way into Ryanair.
But the OP is right. There are people out there prepared to pay 30'000 for a TR, even with the knowledge that the airline they are joining has one of the worst T&Cs. M'OL is laughing, obviously, and it means he can squeeze and squeeze whilst the number of wannabe pilots exceeds the number of positions.
But Portsharbour is correct, when you work out the maths, what you lose short terms you gain long term. My TR was paid for me by my dad-ex pilot, I won't deny that. But it got me a job on a 732 working in SE Asia and that got me a job on the 742F before my 22nd birthday. So I probably made up the TR cost 10-fold compared to if I flew GA building hours.
It is an interesting topic though Afraz (seems you have grown up my son from your posts earlier this year and last).
Perhaps "Kids" today aren't worried so much about material value as I honestly do believe that they know what they are getting themselves in for. Take the Cadet programme we have at Cx which recently opened its doors to those without a HK ID card. They will not get housing allowance. But the fact that they could be in a 777/744 or an A340 after 60 odd weeks of training is so attractive that it is not an issue for them. They will be happy living on top of a restaurant for 3 years.
And of course CX have picked up on this which is probably why they opened their doors. People really would do anything to fly so even in a large international airline like CX, they can afford to lower their T&Cs and yet still attract wannabees.
Anyway more importantly Afraz, where have you been? Would you like some advice on whether integrated is better than Mod? Only joking. Good luck with it all.