University online flight training?

Hey all,

I will soon be finished with my PPL and I am looking into my next steps. I have found an online university (Liberty) that combines a Bachelors degree in aviation along with flight training all the way up to your instructor ratings at various flight schools across the country.

This is appealing because you can use Federal grants/loans for both the flight training and online degree which would save me a lot of money. My question for you is if you know of any other universities that offer this kind of training with an online remote degree bundled together with flight school?

ATP has been my plan for a long time but I know I will need to pursue a 4 year degree afterwords in order to qualify for the majors one day. I just figured maybe doing both at the same time and saving money overall would be the way to go VS taking out 2 giant loans separately. Any opinions?

Yes. This has been discussed here before, and generally the decision goes in favor of whether you will be paying in-state tuition. If not, you could find yourself paying over 100 grand for your bachelor’s degree which could be a real bank drainer.

As far as using student loans for it all, everyone is only allowed a small fraction of their student loans to be handled from the government. It’s usually under 6 grand per year until you’re 23. I know from experience. All student loans after that have to be commercial or private.

It’s nice that they bundled together a college education in this manner, but let me reiterate that you will be paying 100 grand out of pocket for a degree if it is indeed out of state. I’d do some more research but if I had to recommend anything, at this point basically the best option if you’re going to ATP is hitting up Embry-Riddle as they have online instruction and give course credit for pilot licensure.

I am in the Liberty FTA program and the majority of us are either prior military or active/guard/reserve guys. I only know a few guys that do not have a military background and one of them uses a higher education trust fund.

The program seems to target GI Bill benefits and military tuition reimbursement benefits, making ratings and the degree almost free.