Do you guys actually lose 80% of your students before their PPL?

This really depends on a lot of things. It's a very simplistic stat that's probably true in an overall sense, but is kind of meaningless without specific context.

First, I think there's a difference between intentionally "dropping out" and just not going to lessons anymore. For most students in the part 61 world, who are often paying as they go and doing something for fun, they often just stop going as finances dictate or as the training gets harder and maybe less enjoyable. But I don't think this is a conscious decision for most of them. It's like when I took guitar lessons as a kid; I thought "hey cool, I'm gonna shred" and then it ended up being mostly just alternate picking practice, scales and theory. When it got really heavy into theory, I just didn't feel like going to my lesson one day, and I slowly just stopped going at all after that. But I never told my teacher "I'm quitting" and I never thought about it that way. I was just kinda lazy and wasn't enjoying it. I always thought I'd pick it up again at some point.

But flight students like that would be considered "dropouts" for the purpose of this statistic. It's the same thing.

Second, I think it really depends a lot on why someone's taking flight lessons to begin with. In the part 141 world, the training is more focused on preparing students to fly for a career. The students know this going in, so they're pretty motivated. That doesn't mean they can't be surprised at what's actually expected of them too, so you do still get dropouts. But at the school I instructed at, it was nowhere near 80%. I'd say flip that number. It was maybe 20% that dropped out, but probably another 20-30% that washed out. Those are students who wanted to keep going but were essentially told they weren't up to standard. Some of those students then went on to part 61 schools, where they could learn in a more relaxed fashion. Most of them did still want to try to make some sort of career out of flying, and at least a few of those that I know about did that, albeit not for the airlines. At least, not yet.

On an individual basis, I don't think it's true at all that someone who's really motivated to learn to fly and has some idea what that takes has an 80% chance of dropping out. But I just don't think most students are really that motivated, and most flight schools aren't going to do much to give them that motivation if they don't already have it. So, they might just lose interest over time, or figure they'll get back to it when they have more money.

I'm sure that *some* do really just decide either that it's not for them or they can't hack it, and purposefully quit. But that's not anywhere near the 80% number. I think it's closer to the 20% number I experienced at my flight school.