on the contrary Mr. freak,
British Airways training isn't free at all. It's probably one of the most restrictive trainings about. Firstly, you DO have to pay them back... An awful lot of your training expenses come out of your first few years of earnings. Secondly, if you're with BA you have to stay with BA for a pre-determined period and there's never any guarrentee of a job at the end of it. I knew of BA cadets with frozen ATPLs working in safeway, who are not able to go out looking for other airliner jobs.
Chosing an independent form of training opens up your options greatly. If you think that you have the correct attributes required to become a BA cadet then honestly you should have no problems doing it independently and other organisations should 'snap' you up. And if the BA training is SO important to you, you can always approach them during your training at any later stage and switch over. There are MANY organisations that train along side BA cadets and have an identical program from start to MCC JOC.
The BA training scheme isn't the ONE-and-ONLY. Look around, you'd be surprised.