Yes, the expense (even just to get certified) can be daunting. I mentioned this back in post #33 of this thread. However, I recently came face-to-face with these expenses once again.
My daughter took a leave of absence from her univ this past year. While she was home, she took a couple of courses at the univ in this town. One of the courses was this univ's scuba course, a semester-long NAUI course.
I was very, very happy that my daughter was able to undergo 16 weeks of very thorough scuba instruction via a course that followed a PE/YMCA curriculum. However, the price of a three-undergraduate student credit hour course, for tuition and fees and textbooks, at a R1 univ, is not insignificant--even allowing for the tuition discount we received by virtue of my employee benefits. (This univ is one of four universities that are part of a univ system, and I am employed at the system's "corporate offices" division.)
My daughter's course included the use of the univ's equipment for the pool sessions for "free", but I had to pay for my daughter's open water checkout, including her instructor's fee, travel, air fills, and any gear that she used during the checkout that she couldn't source from her mom and me. So, she needed to rent (only) a wet suit, weights, and a pair of Al 80 cylinders, and I purchased a new mask and watch for her. (The rest of the gear she used was owned by her mom and me.)
The final price was $$.
Never underestimate how much the reality of the full sticker price of certification training impacts someone's dream to take up scuba!
rx7diver
P.S.: When I took my daughter's course in 1986, the course cost me very much less (because I was granted a tuition waiver as a result of being either a GTA or GRA in my home department, Statistics, or a GRA for one of the Graduate School deans). The rest of my scuba expenses were covered by my meager GTA/GRA stipend.