gianaameri
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For those that feel there is no money in teaching and only teach for the enjoyment, I believe my friend Pete Nawrocky said it best as a few of us instructor types sat around chatting, one instructor echoed those same sentiments. Pete said, 'do you know what I enjoy? Eating! I enjoy having heat in my house!'. There is plenty of money in teaching if you are doing right.
Perhaps this is one of the problems that has contributed to this accident; Dad did not see any real value in the training. Why do golf and tennis instructors make $25 and hour, a carpenter gets $40 an hour to install a window and a plumber jamming a plunger in your toilet is charging $65 and hour, yet the person with your life in their hands barely makes minimum wage?
Sadly, we (the scuba industry collectively) have done this to ourselves. We devalue ourselves and our service and do not charge what we are worth. I believe we should always conduct ourselves as professional educators, charge like professional educators, deliver like professional educators and get paid accordingly.
depends, was it for just the full cave course? was it for cavern, intro, apprentice and full cave? You are right, $2,800 ain't chump change, but how many hours of training was it? How much travel time did the instructor have? Did he/she provide equipment, gas fills, etc. with the class?I dunno ... I paid $2800 for my cave training. While my instructor earned every penny of it, that ain't exactly chump change.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
How much does your instructor pay for his insurance, yearly instructor renewal, equipment maintenance, travel, fills, fee's? And how many student's does your cave instructor certify every year? Unless you are doing it full time as your primary job, you are only covering costs. The nickel and dime costs instructors incur impact the profit.
Out of the $2800 your instructor probably profited $700. How many hours was your course? At least 40 I hope. That's $70 an hour. $17.50 an hour after costs. Not bad for one student. But to make a decent living the instructor needs to teach more students to have a "roof" and "eat". So the instructor needs to roll through multiple students to increase their profit percentage. So to make a decent living of say 50k a year an instructor that rolls through 20 students in a year at $2800 would need to keep their teaching costs below $6000 for the year. That's gonna be tough. If you think its not, then you need to become an instructor...you will make a million
How do you make a million dollars as an instructor? Start with 2 million.
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I dunno ... I paid $2800 for my cave training. While my instructor earned every penny of it, that ain't exactly chump change.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
Just so you know, the person to whom you are responding, the person who said the cost of his cave instruction was not chump change, is an extremely active instructor, and his cave instructor liked the post.
As I commented earlier in this thread, Dad did not see any real value in the training because of the quality of training in OW. If OW training is a joke, then he probably believed all training is the same scam. I believe he was headed to a showdown with Darwin well before SCUBA and was smiled upon by all gods but Poseidon.Perhaps this is one of the problems that has contributed to this accident; Dad did not see any real value in the training.
Supply and demand, with a bit of state licencing and Unions to reduce the supply on the part of the trades. As long as everyone going to OW class and AOW are sold on the dream of being a Dive Professional, and there is little but money and average skills to overcome, there will be more Dive Professionals than students to support them. Also plumbers and carpenters won't get paid, may get fined, and can loose their licence if their work does not meet a myriad of government standards. Last, but not least, a SCUBA instructor sets his own price, for the most part they are independant contractors.Why do golf and tennis instructors make $25 and hour, a carpenter gets $40 an hour to install a window and a plumber jamming a plunger in your toilet is charging $65 and hour, yet the person with your life in their hands barely makes minimum wage?
Sadly, we (the scuba industry collectively) have done this to ourselves. We devalue ourselves and our service and do not charge what we are worth. I believe we should always conduct ourselves as professional educators, charge like professional educators, deliver like professional educators and get paid accordingly.
That's my point, people, by and large, are not taught that diving can be deadly, they are taught how safe it is, and they are not equipped with the skills, taught and trained to the level required to be useful in an emergency.