Hello,
I was wondering how students pay back the loan as well as housing and food with the limited salary of being a CFI? I am currently considering a military option instead of ATP because of the benefits they offer such as free flight training.
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Cade,
It can be tight sometimes paying it all back in a limited salary. The key is securing a CFI spot somewhere with affordable cost of living and then getting hooked up with a regional with a cadet program offering tuition reimbursement. If you are considering starting soon, the cadet programs could be ramping back up when you are getting close to graduating the program. You get three months of a grace period after graduating before your loan is due so that helps a bit. After that, having the regional you chose cover your loan frees up a good bit of your income to cover the rest of your cost of living.
-Hannah
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Cade,
I will be honest, it can be tight. But many before you have made it happen. Most people find some form of shared housing and there will not be a lot of steak dinners. That being said, it is certainly manageable.
As for the military, that is a great way to go if you want to serve your country and live the military lifestyle. If you simply want the benefits and free flight training, you will most likely end up being miserable in the service. The service, any branch of it, is a whole lifestyle. Many people love it, some hate it. Just make sure that you are joining the military for the right reasons, not just the free flight training.
Chris
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Cade,
Unless you want to join to serve, don’t join the military for the free flight training. That’s not the right reason to join and nor is it guaranteed that you will receive a flying position.
Everyone’s situation is different. There is no easy answer. What I can tell you is I was able to live on $2k/mo. I lived at home during training, student housing as a CFI, and received Tuition Reimbursement. There were times when I needed to use credit to get by, but I paid that off as soon as I was hired at a regional.
If I were to do it again, I would have saved more before starting. I had a good job. I didn’t have to quit when I did, but I was iching to get started.
Something else to consider is ATP’s Flex Track Program. You could work part-time to help pay the bills.
Some students also ask for a living stipend when they apply for the loan. That’s something else to consider.
Tory
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Cade,
It’s also possible to defer your payments or make interest only payments until you’re in a better financial position. It’s not fiscally the best idea as it will end up costing you considerably more money in the end.
Bottomline where there’s a will there’s a way and if this is truly something you want to do you’ll make it work.
Adam
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Cade,
Being young and not having a financially stable life to begin since I just got out of college and already paying loans on top of a car loan, and recently paying around $10,000 for my private pilot license. I had a lot of planning to do…let me give you a little insight to what I’m going through as a student financially strict and focused.
One thing that served me good practice was budgeting for food in college. I learned to develop an idea of how much I could eat to substantially stay healthy, which gave me an insight of how much money I would spend monthly rough.
Currently while at ATP, I do partake in ATP’s housing, which is a downside to the opportunity Tory had of living at home during the program, but my home is 3 hours away from the nearest training center. If I were to remove the $800+ per month for the program term, I alone could have saved a little more than $5,000 out of my loan. The other risky ball I played was getting the $800 monthly stipend from the loan which put me at around $5,000 as well extra to my loan. Which in turn would have reduced my loan cost overall, and lowering the amount of interest overall.
Yes I have money saved, not enough to pay for the whole program, but money that I could sustainably pay a whole year of loan payments (and maybe a few more) in the worse case scenario, I don’t get a job right away and can earn some income. I didn’t want to come into the program without some sort of backup plan. A plan that I have is once I start to get to a few hundred hours of instructing, start to interview and hopefully find a cadet program (as the industry continues growing again) to help accruing extra income to pay more towards my loan.
Like Tory said, saving some funds is a great idea…I had the itch as well. 
Brady
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Cade,
Since the financing option that we offer is a credit-based student loan through Sallie Mae, it does function as a normal student loan where you can defer payments up to 6 months after you’ve completed training.
Once the 6 month grace period has ended, Sallie Mae offers Graduated Repayment which allows for 12 months of interest-only payments before the loan enters full repayment. This gives ATP’s graduates the ability to earn a salary as an airline pilot before making full payments. I would encourage that you consider this as an alternate option if you’re concerned about making full payments on the loan as a CFI.
Addison
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