I certainly agree that student loans should be available to people who want to train as pilots, albeit probably subject to similar controls and entry minima.
Train drivers are an interesting exception; I just had a look online and it does seem to be one of only two job in the railways where the employer pays pretty much all of the selection and training costs - the other is apprentice technicians.
Presumably they do this because there's nobody providing this training by any other means - whilst they can employ well educated engineers, accountants, managers and so-on from outside. Historically the same has been true of pilots - originally there was a ready supply of ex-miltary pilots, whilst as that dried up suppliers have grown up to take the place of that military training. As various colleges have sprung up running ground engineers courses, the airlines of-course have also stopped running their own technician apprenticeships - they don't need to.
Given the salary/working hour benefits for a train driver, what's the betting that if Cabair started running train driver training courses, the railways would stop doing their own driver training and content themselves just to employ Cabair drivers off the new integrated train driving course?
G