How Much Should Certification Cost?

[DwayneJ]

Unfortunately if you are looking for a bargain, you may find one. The funniest/saddest story -

Some friends in Dallas who were absolutely stingy with their money found someone who would teach them to dive for $200 each. Independent of their equipment fit issues, their "open water" dive was in a very very warm lake with zero visibility which turned out to be a runoff lake/pond associated with a power plant of the variety that can make you glow in the dark.

 

[Thalassamania]

You can learn to dive for $99 or you can pay several thousand for high end private lessons or you can find something in between. In my experience you get what you pay for.

 

[PvtStash]

You can learn to dive for $99 or you can pay several thousand for high end private lessons or you can find something in between. In my experience you get what you pay for.

Absolutely... For those that take little to no responsibility for their own training and need to be spoon-fed 1-0n-1 for an OW cost of $700 , fine... if they have that kind of money to afford that level of ease whatever...

I do not have that kind of money, and I believe it is Myself who is ultimately responsible to Learn the skills needed to dive safely. To that end I have done much to instruct myself in much of the basics..., this board has been a Gold mine to that end, in addition to providing many recommendations as to which books will be most helpful (I've read several).

Having done much of the prep work in advance I dont feel I Need a $700 OW course to start diving so the "cheapest" will do just fine.

Now I know I'm not an Instructor, but one doesnt Have to be in order to Think.

 

[ucfdiver]

Absolutely... For those that take little to no responsibility for their own training and need to be spoon-fed 1-0n-1 for an OW cost of $700 , fine... if they have that kind of money to afford that level of ease whatever...

I do not have that kind of money, and I believe it is Myself who is ultimately responsible to Learn the skills needed to dive safely. To that end I have done much to instruct myself in much of the basics..., this board has been a Gold mine to that end, in addition to providing many recommendations as to which books will be most helpful (I've read several).

Having done much of the prep work in advance I dont feel I Need a $700 OW course to start diving so the "cheapest" will do just fine.

Now I know I'm not an Instructor, but one doesnt Have to be in order to Think.

Having a good set of diving friends to set you on the right path helps more than anything else, IMO. I was steered away from so many unneeded gear setups and newbie mistakes by friends it's not even funny.

Also another option for some people is going through your school. I know my school offers $99 lessons that from what I hear are fairly good, student government foots a large portion of the bill, and you end up with lots of one on one time.

 

[DwayneJ]

Having done much of the prep work in advance I dont feel I Need a $700 OW course to start diving so the "cheapest" will do just fine.

As has been said in earlier posts, many of the community colleges have dive courses which you may find reasonably priced.

 

[Papa_Bear]

Sorry...I don't agree with your reasoning...while it might be a safe statement "overall" I was diving with a friend once, and there was an open water class between their first and second open water dives. Call it professional interest at the time, but I hung close enough to listen to the instructor long enough to realize he was really very good. He ran in my mind a first-rate session.

I talked to him for about 30 minutes and he was YMCA, and had actually transistioned over from one of the "big three" because he wanted to teach people diving at a price that was affordable. Where he was teaching offered the entire course for 200, including all books...and using mask, fins, snorkel, etc. Literally all the students needed to show up with was a towel and a swimsuit.

Sorry...after having taught for years...and having seen some instructors who were unbelievable (at both ends of the spectrum) I stand on "it isn't the agency...it isn't the price"...it's the instructor and how they relate themselves and their material to the student. Your statement about the instructor being critical is correct...but remember that is not always based on what the course costs.

As far as minimum wage...unless things have changed dramatically since I taught...dive instructors, once you throw in the time you spend prepping for class, paying your yearly liability insurance costs, taking out and putting away gear for class, working with a challenged student outside of regular class, and all the other things that actually go into running a class are probably making less than minimum wage when you figure money made versus time invested. You teach because you love it....you certainly don't do it for the money.

I don't think we disagree? I just think that too many under value what they do! If you under value your service you don't help anyone and then what happens when the new divers has to face the real life costs of diving? If instructors would or could charge what they are worth we could keep better instructors? Then again maybe your right and we should pay our school teacher the same way? No better calling than wanting children to learn for the least a mount of dollars?:11:

 

[ucfdiver]

I don't think we disagree? I just think that too many under value what they do! If you under value your service you don't help anyone and then what happens when the new divers has to face the real life costs of diving? If instructors would or could charge what they are worth we could keep better instructors? Then again maybe your right and we should pay our school teacher the same way? No better calling than wanting children to learn for the least a mount of dollars?:11:

I think my instructor breaks even on OW courses to get the tech divers. Cavern $300, Intro to cave, $375, Cave $1000, Nitrox, $225, the list goes on. Those classes are much shorter, and he always picks the dive spots he enjoys anyways. I don't know what others charge, frankly I don't care, tech diving is way to dangerous to chose an instructor based on price. Not to mention the dives he's done with us former students "for fun", yet gives extra instruction each dive.

You figure there were 15 of us in cavern class, none of us rented gear or anything, so he got $1500 for a 4 hour lecture Friday night and 4 dives on Saturday. I think he was buying us low, and selling us high (once we get hooked on diving). That's not even including air fills (I know I've had at least 250+ from him at $5 each over the last 10 years), or gear.

 

[Thalassamania]

Absolutely... For those that take little to no responsibility for their own training and need to be spoon-fed 1-0n-1 for an OW cost of $700 , fine... if they have that kind of money to afford that level of ease whatever...

I do not have that kind of money, and I believe it is Myself who is ultimately responsible to Learn the skills needed to dive safely. To that end I have done much to instruct myself in much of the basics..., this board has been a Gold mine to that end, in addition to providing many recommendations as to which books will be most helpful (I've read several).

Having done much of the prep work in advance I dont feel I Need a $700 OW course to start diving so the "cheapest" will do just fine.

Now I know I'm not an Instructor, but one doesnt Have to be in order to Think.

If you think that you can read enough to substitute for decades of diving and diving instructional experience ... more power to you, most of the people that charge the big bucks now likely learned to dive that way themselves. But they may have picked up a few worthwhile tricks along the way.

 

[divewithjay]

In CT we charge 250 for the class, 69 for the materials and you will spend about 200 or so on the basic gear. We have 4 class/pool sessions per class and the open water dives and cost of the course includes the rest of the gear and wetsuit for the open water dives. So somewhere around 500 or so to get certified.

 

[PvtStash]

If you think that you can read enough to substitute for decades of diving and diving instructional experience ... more power to you.

For the purposes of level 1 basic OW scuba ? Yes. Yes I do.

I'll glady (ok maybe not gladly, but I'll understand Why) pay the premiums later when I take my technical training, and I hope to pick up some Super Instructor tips n tricks at that time.