I have just completed my PPL, but throughout the whole process I felt that there was a definite lack of seriousness when it came to ground school.
Currently, the emphasis seems to be on learning to pass the exams, and this can be done with a number of products that are freely available on the net, instead of properly educating student pilots to an acceptable level of theoretical knowledge.
I for one, welcome the idea of some formal, classroom based learning (even though I no longer require it), but am unable to see how the FBO will offer it without a large increase of the course cost.
Unfortunately, I feel that the FBO's will probably get around the need to provide proper ground school, but rely on "FOFO" learning instead, that will ultimately lead to the same situation that we have at the moment, which is learning to pass the exams!