Yeah, if I ever ran this edition (big if), I would have to tell players to ignore those times straight away (among other things).
I would maybe limit them to one expenditure between sessions, if I limit them at all. I've always just allowed downtime advancement between runs. And initiation taking months? No way ever. I used to just fold in ordeals to the runs themselves. Like have a crazy but enlightening magical threat they face so that the player can get the Karma discount, and skip the side quest rolls to get the benefit. Other than having to learn/buy spells as a Wizard in D&D, I can't think of the last game I played where downtime taxes were even used, much less so crazy high as this one. It's just not a thing any more.
Plus with the extremely stingy suggested rewards, players would almost never advance. No fun to be had there. Spend what you have.
Should seriously be reconsidered as a negative impact to player perception, even if stated as "optional". There's better things to spend the character count on. Like all the clarifications and missing rules for one. Save training times for a splatbook.