As an agent myself as well as someone who did a student pathway many years ago, I won’t recommend it. That’s true, it’s a long and expensive path towards PR, if successful. Can’t you just qualify for a bridging course straight away? Not entirely sure about your background. Also, if you’re dealing with a registered agent, one way of knowing about their experience is through their MARA registration number. The first two digits indicate the year they first got registered. So for example if ang start is 17xxxxx, it means they’ve got only one year experience as migration agent....so the lower the number, the more experience they have. Good luck!