It is interesting to see the different perception of such a program in the US compared to Europe.
In Europe, the good jobs are usually via cadetships, and selfimprovers only come into the game if not enough cadets are available. Of course this is somehow shifting, but not totally.
The developent is more that the traditional cadetships have been redesigned to put more financial risk on the candidate, while at the same time other carriers actually have just introduced such programs.
At the end I guess it comes down to historics. European airlines never had the big supply of pilots from military, general and business aviation, therefore early on had to find alternative ways of assuring talent and quality. And there is absolutely no doubt, in my shop we are still convinced that a well selected and thoroughly trained cadet overall is a great way to form highly skilled pilots. But of course it also needs a training environment during the whole career, not just a checking environment.
It is hard to judge from the other side of the pond if the US really has a shortage (then such programs could help) or if it still is really a shortage of pilots prepared to fly for bad wages.
But sure it is interesting to see how such a new concept will develop in a system which over decades has produced the most safe aviation system (by statistics) with a total different concept.