I think most cave instructors are charging bargain prices for classes.
Every cave instructor has put a lot of personal expense into gaining experience as a diver in open water and in overhead environments. When you think of the cost of charter boats, air and mixed gas fills, dive vacations, gasoline or diesel for cars and trucks, the cost of becoming an instructor, the personal sacrifices in a low-paying field, sporadic work, and the risks and lessons learned over 10, 20, 30 or more years of diving, it is a wonder that anyone would want to be an instructor at all.
Fortunately, many who have a passion for diving are willing to step up to the plate and incur further risk and responsibility by being diving educators in one of the world's most unforgiving, yet beautiful environments. You almost cannot put a price tag on the opportunity to be able to swim through the decorative features found in many cave systems. Added to which, the cave community is unlike any other in the diving world. The respect, friendships, and social scene that even the newest cave diver is exposed to is unparalleled. How many open water students can sit down for a beer near a local dive hot spot and be surrounded by the famous, the talented, the experienced as found in cave diving? During the apprentice class I just taught, the student was surrounded by some of the world's best cave divers and instructors while having a beer at the Great Outdoors restaurant in High Springs. What he learned through osmosis during conversations was invaluable.
Since students are paying for a cave instructor's time, what a student brings to cave class will also help determine the value of the class. I expected us to be able to get through Apprentice and Full Cave during 10 days in FL. However, the student did not have adequate trim and propulsion skills. His buoyancy was excellent. I had to spend 3 days working on just trim, propulsion and basic task-loading skills. The student lost 3 days of cave training right there. Next, awareness became a huge problem. It took us a couple of dives to sort out being aware that our team members were even in the cave and not peeking in from the entrance or hanging out on the ceiling with the light covered. After that, there were issues with being aware of light signals such as EMERGENCY! being flashed while task-loaded. Once we had team, trim, and propulsion squared away, we finally were able to concentrate on proper breathing, movement in high and low flow, using the cave environment to our advantage, moving away from a pull and glide in high flow to a "no touch" style of diving, and then working on complex navigation. However, as an Intro to Cave diver, the student should have had the basics more squared away. The more remedial work a cave instructor has to do, the less time there is for the wealth of information that your cave instructor's brain contains for the level of certification you are seeking.
For example, experience has placed me in restrictions in back gas that I had never imagined during training. Having been there and done that, I use a restriction in FL for a no lights gas sharing exit that is actually safely managed from either side by the instructor, but for the students it is a nightmare to negotiate since they have to fit through just the right way. Experiencing such a restriction in training will reduce the stress of such a restriction in the reel world.
Some cave instructors are experienced in one cave environment, while others have experience in a myriad of environments. For example, in addition to her experience exploring typical FL, Mexican, and Caribbean systems, Jill Heinerth has experience cave diving in an iceberg. I think only Paul Heinerth and Wes Skiles have that experience. One criticism for instructors who don't live in cave country is that they don't know the caves as well, but that can be countered with the argument that just because instructors know the caves better than others doesn't mean they use them to full advantage. Cave instructors from all over the world bring a lot of travel and homegrown cave diving to the class.
Some cave instructors go to work and try to make their days easy and routine by teaching a decent program. Others work really hard to maximize learning at every moment. However, there are very few cave instructors who are poor, if any are really that "poor" in comparison to open water and tech standards. Students will usually get a professional who is well above the rest of dive educators.
Different agencies have different standards. As a PSAI instructor, PSAI requires 12 dives at the full cave level if you are doing a zero to hero cave course, but only 8 dives at the full cave level if you are coming from apprentice. Four extra dives could add two full days of training. Cave agencies also back an instructor's personal standards over the minimum standards of training. Some instructors tend to do more dives in each class and charge more for them.
When you think about the fact that a cave instructor is willing to teach 1/2 a mile under a submerged rock ceiling for less money than most personal fitness trainers and golf pros charge per hour, the current range of rates from high to low are generous!
