This may or may not be good advice, but I was on your path many many many years ago. I ended up working in tech, and not for the airlines, and I'm not sure it's very rewarding emotionally, but it's a lot more rewarding fiscally.
I ended up taking about 7 years off from flying, which sounds like an eternity, but now I'm back full-force with an 1/3 ownership in an LLC that has a sweet little ol' 1975 C-182P, and flying whenever I feel like driving a mile and a half to the airport and turning the key. It's wicked fun to whip out your own airplane keys and head for the airport.
Decided to also do an aviation podcast, and tried a crazy idea of approaching three complete aviation strangers I met via social media (Twitter) to co-host it with me. We're having a ball and I gained four or five great friends in one year of doing the show. We've also met some incredible people in aviation in that one year's time.
So... there are many paths and many roads out there, and they can all lead to flying and fun, I guess is the moral to the story... if you're in the mood for "deep thoughts by Jack Handey".
Right now I'm on the path to finish up the long-neglected Instrument ticket after passing the written twice and letting it lapse twice many moons ago, and just having a ball. I have a supportive wife and budget to do more flying than I can usually get in during weekends in most months, unless I throw in a long XC, and because I don't have to do my flying for a living, I don't have to do "standing overnights" or push at 04:30 from some below-zero location in Northern Wyoming, or dead-head halfway across the country from my beloved Colorado to fly people around in the over-populated coastal areas of this great Land.
Granted, my original CFI was well into his career when I met him, and now flies 777's for Continental... and has for many years... so if I were to have stayed on the "one-true-path" to the majors, who knows if I'd have made it or have been washed out in the furlough madness by now, but I do still dream of an office in the Flight Levels from time to time, when sitting at my ground-pounder desk.
Military: If you have a heart to serve, they'll still pay for an awful big chunk of that schooling, even if you don't fly as your primary job. You don't have to fly in the military to fly afterward, ya know? But that's an ultra-personal decision and I never went there.
Dad was Navy during Vietnam and after. Grandpa was not allowed to go to WWII due to injuries suffered on the farm in his teenage years. So I fully respect military culture and people, and many friends are military or ex-military, but I never served myself. If you're up for it and feel like joining the service, it's certainly not a bad way to pay for school.
My wife is a nurse, we're pushing 40, and she still has some of her student loan debt. It's awfully low on our priorities list, since we have an old-school loan at ridiculously low rates. But she'll be paying it off for a long time still.
She's managed through hard work to advance herself to Assistant Director of Nursing for a mid-sized care network, and isn't really interested in an MBA or anything like that. It's her first taste of being "management". She'd like to teach nursing, but she'd probably have to go past the Masters to even get into that world, and the price/benefit just isn't there.
Me, when I bailed out on aviation as a career and went whole-hog into tech, I found myself managing a help desk in my early 20s and building data centers and other "exciting" things in my 30s. Now at the tail end of the 30's, the priorities have changed a bit, and I just do a solid, professional job, in a high-visibility tech support group for a company that does about a billion a year in revenue, and keep my nose clean so they'll keep sending checks every couple of weeks that I can make my airplane bills with. Heh.
I think you're at that point in life where you're asking "Do I follow my passion, even if I'm broke doing it for a long time?", or "Do I take the safe road?" I'd say follow the passion, but remember that Accounting can always pay the bills and the aviation passion can always be reignited at will, if you end up hitting rocky times in Aviation land.
You're young, and while this might sound stupid or like it would suck... it's a lot easier to be broke when you're already used to being broke.
If you're going the airline route, get broke and stay there... so to speak. See below.
Keeping personal drama (crazy significant others) out of it can certainly help when fiscal drama is high. You don't need both at the same time. I was lucky to be one of those "dorks" who married my high-school sweetheart after breaking up in our college years for a while, and she's amazing. I've watched countless classmates go through catching AIDS... "Aviation Induced Divorce Syndrome". Unless you know 100% that your significant other is the rare personality type that can handle you being away for weeks at a time... don't make commitments you can't follow through on. Having a pile of kids early in life with a woman who wants to settle down but can't handle things on her own while you're gone... is disaster on wheels. Emotionally, financially, etc.
My wife was luckily, instead... the person who looked at me one day and said, "You know those folks that live next door to your dad are going to try to get you involved in that airplane. You really should do it. You've been talking about getting back to flying for years."
Yee-haw. I couldn't ask for a better spouse in a million years.
Back to the "get broke and stay broke" thing. You'll have to work hard, 2 or 3 jobs was common for me in my early flying and school years, and sleep -- well, I don't really know when I slept, but I know I couldn't keep up with the 20-year-old me today... I threw bags at Continental at the old Stapleton International here in Denver, I tossed USPS mail onto countless belts and aircraft, I sat for hour after mind-numbing hour in a gas station attendant booth out in a parking lot through hot and cold, and I went to classes and flew every chance I got. It was great. It was exhausting. It is memories I treasure, and I learned to work hard.
If there's anything else, it's this: Keep the debt as low as you can, fly your butt off, and above all, keep a smile on your face. If you master the art of being happy, truly happy, at just being alive and having the opportunity to fly and live a normal life... you'll never want for anything.
If you're worried and over-thinking it now... wait until you're 40 still wondering if you chased the right dream. Trust me when I say, we all do it. You'll have a tendency to do that your whole life.
A lot of that feeling is caused by lack of a plan. You have little control over until you put a plan down in writing, and get after it. The plan can always have changes made to it if it's come completely off the rails, but we all need a list of bigger goals to keep the little stuff from getting in the way.
Look deep into yourself, decide what you want to do, and do it. Willpower has shown to be a much more powerful force than brainpower in most of life's endeavors. "If there's a will, there's a way.", isn't cliche' for no reason. Just by living in our resource-rich Country, you're already in the top 1% of wage-earners on the planet, just by having a McJob.
Look for opportunity, not for what seems to be standing in your way, and you'll find opportunity. It's a lot like fishing... if you spend all day fretting about what lure to try, instead of fishing... you won't catch anything.
Go get 'em, young man. That's what all the old guys told me when I was your age, so I'll repeat it. It doesn't really help you, but it is the way of things... old guys tell the young guys to take the hill, the young guys grab a gun and charge...
