Hey
I’m in an almost identical position to you, although I have just graduated from university and I am 22. I’ve wanted to be an airline pilot since I was 5 years old and I have also been slightly disheartened by the ordeal that seems to be financing pilot training. The fact is everyone on this site who wants to be a pilot is in the same boat these days! Unless your parents have some serious cash lying around and can afford to pay to get you into a slick integrated school, then you need to get a decent job, save and go modular (or integrated if you want to save for a few more years!). It takes longer and will be hard work, but I want this career so much I’m prepared to do it! Also I’d rather be debt free looking for airline employment rather than have a mortgage sized training loan hanging around my neck, living off a pittance, constantly worrying that I won’t gain employment. That’s not to say there’s not people who do go through on a large loan and get employed immediately, but personally I wouldn’t like to take that sort of risk.
Don’t lose faith in it, most airline pilots on this forum have gone through the same as us at some point! Unless they got fully sponsored back in the good old days!
G