Ah, hah! The old Part 61 v. Part 141 debate
I've seen it from both sides of the desk. I did all of my training under Part 61 with instructors who owned their own airplanes. My aviation career was instructing primarily in Part 141 venues.
I initially started flying for fun, so Part 61 was fine. In the back of my mind was getting my Commercial because I thought that I could then get my CFI and instruct to have flying pay for itself. I always figured that all Commercial-CFIs were the same. I found out how wrong I was when I went to work at ERAU. The level of knowledge exhibited by the instructors and students blew my mind! I knew I had to catch up, which, for the most part, I did, but I always felt that there were gaps in my knowledge which I would not have had if I trained in a 141 environment. That's why I come out so strongly in favor of 141 schools for would-be serious flight students.
Tarp put up an extremely entertaining, and accurate, post about 141 schools. But what he wrote is why I like them. A 141 school is, well . . . school. A school environment demands a certain measure of motivation and dedication, and imposes a certain measure of discipline. Having some discipline imposed upon students is good for them. I'm not saying that flight instructors should abandon friendliness in favor of facism, but challenging your students forces growth and promotes learning.
I found that out first-hand during my early days at Riddle. I was not hard on my students and they did not do well. The Chief Instructor yanked me into his office and said I needed to get tough. I did. I demanded more from my students and their performance improved, and so did mine. My students were flying better than I was at similar points in their training because the discpline I provided.
Preparation is the key for a 141 school. A student who is absolutely serious about training and who prepares thoroughly for each lesson will do fine in the program. It was my experience that the unprepared and screw-offs were the ones who needed so much extra training and saw their costs ratchet up.
Finally, I have to disagree with the multitudes who say the airlines don't care where you trained. I think you win points if you show that you graduated from a 141 program. It exhibits a measure of dedication maybe not exhibited by a Part 61 background. But a lot depends on the school. There are some fine Part 61 programs. I would just not recommend doing Part 61 the way I did. I am sure I would have done better in my career had I trained properly under Part 141.