Hi everyone Im from Tampa FL, Im 19 years old and I started my PPL in July 2022 but Ive not been to my flight school in more then 3 months due to couple problems.
problem 1, my parents said they would pay for my whole PPL trainign but things got in their way and they couldn’t fund any further for my PPL training so I started to fund myself for about 3-4 moths but I ran out of money completely and I couldn’t fund my training any more from my part time job pay, so I havent been trainig for little over 3 months now.
Problem 2, since I won’t be able to fund my training anymore from my part time job pay I applied for a private loan that my flight school is associated with but their intrest rate is very high and they also require borrowers to start paying from a year after they take out a loan for 15 years, so if I take out loan right now I have to start maiking payments starting from next year. I will also upload a picture of the loan options they offer.
Problem 3, I am very scared to take out private loan because they require me to start paying it from next year every month for 15 years. Even if I complete all my training by next year and get CFI job in late next year or early 2025, I’m not sure if I will be able my mothly payments for my debts because its so high.
So can you guys pls give me advice and tips how can I pay for my flight training. Also can you guys pls tell me if I will be able to pay off my student debt. To become a pilot is my dream and I dont have any other back up plan and idk what to do right now with this situation, all your help is really appreciated and thank you for taking your time to reading my question.
While flight training is never inexpensive and interest rates tend to be high for unsecured loans, those rates do appear to be excessive. That said, a couple of things.
First, do you have any intension to go to college? While not required, the Majors do and will continue to prefer you have one. Definitely something you should think about.
As for the finances I obviously have no idea what school you’re attending not do I know what you’ll be able to afford BUT if it were me (and it was), Id be looking at a flight school with a proven reputation for almost 40yrs of training pilots for the airlines. A school that has had over 1,100 of their grads hired by airlines in the last 12mos alone. A school with more airline partnerships than any other and one that will help you get a conditional offer of employment BEFORE you complete your training that could include Tuition Reimbursement that will help you make those loan payments. Finally a flight school that has pioneered a Direct Entry program with Spirit and Frontier making it possible to bypass the Regionals and go straight to a Boeing or Airbus. If your flight school can’t check all (or even any) of those boxes I recommend you take at good look at ATP.
Hi thank you for your help. I was about to attend Embry Riddle this fall but it was too expensive for me so I didnt attend there. I have also looked at other flight colleges and none of them cover flight training and BS together flight is separate so that didn’t really work out for me either, and I know some major airlines do prefer to have a degree but one of my past instructors didn’t get a degree and he recently got hired at major airline and he said now some pilots are not getting a degree and airlines are hiring them so I want to try not to get degree and if I need one I will just do it online.
Sorry I thought this forum was for everyone who had aviation questions.
Why are you sorry? It is for everyone and I apologize if I gave you the impression it wasn’t.
As for the degree, EVERYONE knows a guy who knows a guy who got hired without a degree. This isn’t about picking the right lottery numbers but being competitive. Frankly if you’re going to invest in a career in aviation, wouldn’t you want to make your odds of success as high as possible vs crossing your fingers and hoping for the best?
I noticed you completely didn’t mention my suggestions regarding ATP which is fine. Again it’s about increasing your odds for success but hey, what do I know?
Those interest rates are absolutely draconian, and all but 1 of the loans are variable rate. That means on top of already insane rates, they’ll hike up your rates for whatever reason they wrote into the pages of fine print that nobody ever reads, and I can guarantee you, missing a payment is one of the reasons.
There are alot of reasons to avoid getting your PPL thru a mom and pop flight school (and very few reasons to get one thru them), and you can definitely add “paying for a PPL with a credit card” to the reasons not to. With those interest rates, those loans arent loans, theyre credit cards dressed up as loans, and most people know (or learned by financially ruining themselves) that credit cards are the most expensive short term loans out there and will drown you if you miss payments, especially causing the variable rate to kick in and bump up your interest rate even higher
Gonna jump in to say that that looks like Stratus Finance. I would avoid them. I dealt with them for months to try and fund training (before I settled on ATP) and they tried to pull shady stuff on me 3 separate times. Ultimately I never signed the loan documents and I personally would never use them.
You can see up top that is forum is sponsored by ATP and all the mentors are ATP grads. Part of what makes this program stand out, all the benefits available to students to make this dream a bit more attainable. You still need to get approved for financing on your own, but once you do there are flexible repayment options, tuition reimbursement programs and CFI job opportunities at the completion of the program. All you need to be equipped to start paying on your loan until you make it to the regionals.
No sorry I just got confused for a quick sec and thiught maybe this was only for ATP students.
You are true abiut degree, since getting to majors is my goal I dont want to take any risk or chances, I am planning to get all my ratings first and then get my degree online to get it fast and cheap.
