Full flight simulators used by airlines are extremely expensive and out of reach for most flight schools, but there are lower-fidelity devices at around half a million dollars that provide enough fidelity for training purposes.
From a research perspective, we talk about cognitive fidelity being what matters, meaning that if it replicates the internal mental processes in training, that can often be more important than the actual physical fidelity of the simulator itself. These less expensive devices can be very effective in training. They also reduce noise and they allow students to fly in bad weather, which is a tremendous challenge here in Canada. It's more of a year-round training footprint. Noise emissions....
There are a lot of advantages for simulations.