In my current work, I have had occasion to visit all the academy ships within the last 3 years. there are one or two that are pretty good, but there are more that are in very poor condition, and there seems to be a terminal case of " not my problem" with them.
Having said that, the likelihood of any academy ever getting a “new” ship is remote. Most are cast off USN or MARAD vessels.
For a deck guy, learning to drive a ship that has the handling of a drunk walrus is a good thing. Navigation w/o all the latest gee-whiz electronics is better than creating a built-in reliance on things that will only break at the worst possible time.
For us engineers, older, IMO, is better. You actually get to fix stuff. A motor is a motor, steering gear is gear, pumps are pumps. If you get on with a company that has the ability to fix their own gear, you’re way ahead. Even if you get on with an oil patch group, that farms everything out, you’ll at least be able to talk intelligently to the Port Engineer. There’s nothing like bringing steam to the box to find out who the hackers and slackers are.