How Do You Pay for Flight School?

The lender is not your only option

Scholarships

Home equity

A family loan

Your credit union

On a program this size, the difference between the cheapest of these and the most expensive can add up to tens of thousands of dollars in interest.

Your options

We’ve put together a list of different ways you can help finance your flight training. Some of these are scholarships that we recommend applying for regardless of how you plan to pay for training. Others are alternatives to traditional flight school lenders and may offer better rates depending on your financial situation. Finally, there are flight school financing partners, which many students use to cover the cost of training and get started on their path toward a professional pilot career.

Where	What it costs	How it works
Scholarships and grants	0%	AOPA, EAA, Women in Aviation, and local aviation foundations. Awards run from a few hundred dollars up to about $14,000. You never pay it back, so start here.
Home equity loan or HELOC	About 7.4%	Borrow against the equity in a house. The existing mortgage stays where it is. Usually the cheapest loan a family can get.
Cash-out refinance	About 6.8%	Refinance the mortgage for more than is owed and take the difference in cash. Only worth it if the current mortgage is already near today’s rate, because the whole balance gets repriced.
Family loan	0% to 8%	A relative lends you the money directly. Write it down: a note, a rate, a payment schedule. Often cheaper than anything else on this list.
Personal loan, bank or credit union	About 7% to 18%	No collateral, so your credit and income set the rate. Credit unions are usually cheapest, and a federal credit union cannot charge more than 18%.
Aviation training loan	The most expensive	Built for flight training and paid straight to the school. Easier to get approved for than the rest. Check for an origination fee on top of the rate.

Rates are from September 2026 and they move. What you are offered depends on your credit, income, the amount, the term and the collateral.

You will notice federal student loans are not on the list. Those only apply if your flight training is part of a college program, which ours is not. A few lenders also write loans for career schools, but the school has to be on their approved list first.

We keep a list of every pilot scholarship and its deadline, checked every day.

Parents can be a huge help

This is the one most people do not think of. If you are young and have not borrowed much before, a lender prices you on that, and the rate tends to land somewhere in the teens. If your parents own a house, they get priced on the house instead, which is closer to 7% at the moment. It is the same $89,000 going to the same place, and over ten years that is a large difference.

That does not mean your parents should pay for your training. It means the conversation is worth having, and it is a slightly different one than most people expect. Roughly what it needs to cover:

Know what you are asking for

It is a much easier conversation with a specific number in it than with “flight school is expensive”. Know what the training costs, what you can cover yourself, and what is actually left over.
Be clear which thing you are asking them to do

Paying for your training, lending you the money, and putting their house behind a loan you repay are three different asks, and they carry very different risk for your parents. Say which one you mean rather than letting them guess.
Show them you are invested too

You are asking them to back a decision, not just fund one, and the thing that moves that conversation is evidence you are serious. Put in whatever you can yourself, and be ready to show the work you have already done: the flying so far, the schools you looked at, why this one.
Talk about the career, not just the training

The cost is much easier to weigh against what is on the other side of it. This is a licensed profession with a defined path: around nine months of training, a few years instructing and building hours, then the airlines. It helps for your parents to see the whole thing rather than just the bill at the front of it.

And if the answer is no, that is fine. Nothing else on this page depends on it, and plenty of people get through training without any family help at all.

Before you borrow

The house is on the line

If your parents borrow against the house, the house is what the bank comes for if the payments stop. That is the reason the rate is lower. It is worth them being clear on that before anyone signs anything.
Do not refinance a cheap mortgage

If they are already paying 3% or 4% on their mortgage, a cash-out refinance reprices the whole thing at today’s rate, which usually costs more than the cash is worth. A home equity loan or HELOC leaves the mortgage alone, so that is normally the better route.
Apply for scholarships, but do not wait for them

Scholarship applications take an evening, but decisions can take months. Apply to everything you qualify for, then get started on the money you already have.

You can refinance it later

Whatever rate you are offered now is priced on who you are now: a student with no aviation income behind them. Once you hold a commercial certificate and you are earning, you are a different borrower. Refinancing just means taking a new loan at a better rate and using it to pay off the first one.

American Airlines Credit Union runs one of these specifically for pilots: up to $125,000 over up to 15 years, no application or origination fee, for anyone holding a commercial or ATP certificate. Membership is open to people working in air transportation rather than only to American employees, so it is worth checking against your own situation. Other credit unions do something similar, and an ordinary personal loan can do the same job.

Two things to watch. It only works if your original loan lets you pay it off early without a penalty, so check that before you sign anything. And it is not guaranteed, because the rate still depends on your credit and income at the time. Treat it as something that often works out rather than a reason to accept a bad rate today.

What we can tell you

We work with Stratus Financial, who lend specifically for flight training. They set the rate, not us, so we will not quote one for you. Prequalifying with them is a soft credit check and will not affect your score. And if your family can borrow against a house at around 7%, that will be cheaper than anything we can arrange. We would rather tell you that now than after you have applied.

The co-borrower part

A co-borrower shares responsibility for the loan with you, usually a parent. If the payments do not get made, the lender goes to them. Whether you need one comes down to your credit and income, and the lender decides that after seeing your application, though ours asks for one before you can submit. There is a short page you can send them if it helps.

Questions

Can you get a federal student loan for flight school?

Only if your flight training is part of a college program. A standalone flight school is not, so federal aid will not apply, and the same goes for the career-school loans that need the school on a lender’s approved list. That leaves scholarships, borrowing against a house, a bank or credit union loan, a specialist aviation lender, or family.

What is the cheapest way to pay for flight school?

Scholarships, because you never pay them back, though they rarely cover the whole thing. After that, anything borrowed against a house is usually cheapest at around 7%, then a credit union, then a specialist aviation lender. Most people end up combining two or three of these rather than using one.

Can my parents borrow against their house to pay for my training?

They can, and it is usually the cheapest money a family has access to. A home equity loan or HELOC leaves their existing mortgage alone, which matters a lot if that mortgage is at 3% or 4%, and it is normally better than refinancing the whole mortgage to pull cash out. The house is the collateral, so it has to be their decision to make.

What is the difference between a co-borrower and my parents borrowing against their house?

A co-borrower signs onto your loan and shares responsibility for it, so it sits on their credit alongside yours. A home equity loan is their loan, which you then pay back to them privately. Those are two different asks with two different consequences, so it is worth being clear about which one you are making.

Do flight training loans need a co-borrower?

Often, depending on your credit and income, and the lender works that out after seeing your application rather than telling you up front. Our own application asks for a co-borrower before you can submit, so it is worth talking to your family early rather than at the last screen.

Can you refinance a flight training loan later?

Usually, yes. Once you hold a commercial certificate and are earning, you are a different borrower than the one who signed the first loan, and a new loan at a better rate can pay off the old one. American Airlines Credit Union runs a refinance built for pilots, and other credit unions do something similar. It only works if the original loan has no prepayment penalty, so check that before you sign.

How much do scholarships actually cover?

Part of it, rarely all of it. Awards run from a few hundred dollars up to about $14,000, and the AOPA Foundation is giving out $2.2 million across its 2026 scholarships. Applications take an evening but decisions can take months, so apply to everything you qualify for and get started on the money you already have.

Can a family member just lend me the money?

They can, and this gets overlooked more than anything else on the list. Write it down properly: a promissory note, a rate and a payment schedule. On a larger loan, charge at least the IRS applicable federal rate so it is not treated as a gift, and have an accountant or attorney structure it.

Sources

Last reviewed September 2026. Figures are the most recent published at that time. Wages, prices, rules and airline hiring minimums move, so check the source before you make a decision on one of these numbers.