CEPs are cheaper to pay a salary to than guys with experience. We were told the course cost was £60000 (nominally) for BA. Some bright spark did the sums and including the £200pcm we pay back for the first five years, plus the lower cadet pay scales (for the first seven years) we cost £62,500 less than a DEP!!
However, we didn't have to fork out £50k in advance to pay for our own courses!!