That's a shame if true, and it's one of the reasons I think airlines should always help with the funding side of things themselves if they're going to have a tagged scheme at all. I know we could go on all day about airlines being businesses and whatnot. Of course they are. But it does seem somewhat self-defeating to open a cadet programme, which is presumably designed to find the highest quality of candidates, only to then present the same financial barriers to said hopefuls as would otherwise exist without a cadet programme in the first place. Because otherwise all you're really getting is the best of those who can afford it, which largely already exist graduating from the current triopoly of integrated FTOs in abundance.
Just my two cents.
