The bit I have never understood is that anybody with the IQ to pass the PPL exams can easily add up what it will cost to get a PPL
and fly afterwards.
Obviously those who just want to "learn to fly" are not going to be concerned about the long term cost of the minimal currency, but everybody else in the sausage machine ought to be aware of it. Up front, I mean.
OTOH, to be fair, there is b*gger-all information available to the student about what they can do afterwards. IME, the school/club tries hard to channel everybody into the self fly hire option, and then they feed them like mushrooms to keep them there for as long as possible.
I was nosing around at "options" from quite an early time (started looking at IFR at about the time of the 3rd cancelled lesson
) and I was fed a huge amount of bull about ownership and about the IFR options. It was 2 years before I discovered the N-reg option and that was over the internet...