Having only taking my test at 40 last year I must say, despite the cost of circa £950 including CBT, trading, MOD 1 & 2 tests for direct access wasn’t a waste of money.
I do feel the training received and the competency gained along with knowing the test was actually decent testing was worth while.
Obviously depending on the school chosen will have a difference in the experience, there were 2 days where I actually said to the instructor that I felt they were not good and wasted days - I thought I’d not learnt anything. He then reminded me the difference from the start and that in actual fact he’d seen improvement in my abilities and maybe it was right I’d not learnt anything new… but in fact just put into practice what I had learnt.