Thanks for the post! It's nice for guys like me still in education to get an idea of how people do it!
Due to the rise in tuition fees I think that many people will think twice before going off. I don't plan to go myself and I agree with WWW that a skill is very useful. When leaving college I plan to get a translators qualification which will enable me to work for translation companies. Very random I know, but it provides a nice income and then hopefully I will be able to fund flight training and if I were ever to be made redundant I will have someone to fall back on!