GI Bill SCUBA

[IslandDiversHI]

Hawaii Scuba University | HSU of Honolulu Hawaii's Official Site is undergoing rennovation
matt@islanddivershawaii.com with questions
Update: BAH in at our school zip code of 96857 went to $2709/month effective Aug 1st, 2014. Can you afford not to become an instructor with us?
Aloha,
Matt

 

[IslandDiversHI]

Aloha Scubaboard,

Island Divers Hawaii's associated professional dive training program is called Hawaii Scuba University. The Divemaster, Instructor, MSDT and IDC Staff programs are all VA approved programs. You can find our school one the WEAMS institutions search under Non College Degree programs for the state of Hawaii.
For vets that are interested you can goto
WEAMS Public
School Name: Hawaii Scuba University
Program Type: Non College Degree
click on the picture of the state of Hawaii
You can find Hawaii Scuba University there.

The website is in the process of relaunch, but the 2014 start dates are accurate. A new program starts every 10 weeks and goes up to MSDT (you'll need 25 certs to move onto IDC Staff). You can jump in at your current level of training with prior credit issued. Chp 30 and 33 benefits cover all tuition and fees, you are only out of pocket for PADI fees and books. As noted in this thread, IE exam fees can be reimbursed by VA. BAH is currently approx $2200 a month in Hawaii, enough to cover living expenses on the island. We are not particularly active on Scubaboard, but there are links on the website to contact the registrar, a vet, who you can provide you more information. For 2014 we have 2 course directors on staff for the program, as well as 4 dive boats, a 100m pool (yes really, it's 100m and 15ft in the diving well), and an active local diver & tourism market. The University has mostly been advertised by word of mouth, but that is likely going to change this year as we start to reach out to the national market.

As it turns out, Hawaii is kinda a fun place to scuba dive as well.

Update 9/4/16:
Hawaii Scuba University has grown quite a bit since this post was made in 2016.

• www.hawaiiscubauniversity.com is now an updated site will full information
• programs start as early as OW and go through IDC Staff, full gear only included in Divemaster course
• additional programs have been added: Scuba Repair Technician (5 weeks) and Rebreather Instructor (start as a user, get 100 hours, do a course assist, complete a Tec40CCR IDC - takes 3 months, rebreather included in course cost)
• the registrar is no longer a vet, but there are now 2 administrative staff to handle enrollments, and most of the staff are HSU graduates and are about 80% vets
• BAH has change and is now near $2600 for 2016-17 academic year
• PADI books are now included in program
• new programs now start every 5 weeks
• dedicated school number is 808-947-6583
• now 5 dive boats, still all free to access for enrolled students
• national advertising has commenced

All inquires are welcome of course.

 

[Father]

Update 9/4/16:
Hawaii Scuba University has grown quite a bit since this post was made in 2016.

• www.hawaiiscubauniversity.com is now an updated site will full information
• programs start as early as OW and go through IDC Staff, full gear only included in Divemaster course
• additional programs have been added: Scuba Repair Technician (5 weeks) and Rebreather Instructor (start as a user, get 100 hours, do a course assist, complete a Tec40CCR IDC - takes 3 months, rebreather included in course cost)
• the registrar is no longer a vet, but there are now 2 administrative staff to handle enrollments, and most of the staff are HSU graduates and are about 80% vets
• BAH has change and is now near $2600 for 2016-17 academic year
• PADI books are now included in program
• new programs now start every 5 weeks
• dedicated school number is 808-947-6583
• now 5 dive boats, still all free to access for enrolled students
• national advertising has commenced

All inquires are welcome of course.

Are you offering more full-time course schedules?
nHow long to complete from Rescue to DM to Instructor?

 

[IslandDiversHI]

Are you offering more full-time course schedules?
nHow long to complete from Rescue to DM to Instructor?

Each course begins every 5 weeks. Rescue to DM would be 8 weeks. AI, OWSI, and EFRI combined, 8 weeks. Full details on the website.

 

[IslandDiversHI]

Are you offering more full-time course schedules?

Sorry, I did not answer this completely and thanks for pointing that out in a PM.
Answer: Most of our students are civilians or active duty with full time jobs and 2 nights a week and 8 hours each on Saturday and Sunday is quite enough to keep them fully engaged. There is a subset of GI Bill users that move to Oahu to participate in the program. They prefer the long program as it extends BAH payments. BAH is just shy of $2700/month for GI Bill users, so we don't get a call for more compressed programs.
So the answer is: We CAN do it, we just don't. Caveat: If you really want us to, we will, organize 4 participants and we'll make it happen.
Since all programs included boat access, and we have 5 boats that go out daily, they get all the diving they want, with the side benefit of some of that "green" that comes with a zero to hero program gets worked off. Many of them are truly interested in getting into the industry and can be found in one of the 4 dive shops on most days. Many of them work their way into paid positions.

So, let me wax philosophical for a second. A real life example, call him Jimmy, who enrolled in the DM program. Jimmy showed up on the boat probably 4 days a week while in the 7 week DM program. He started out mostly fun diving on the Advanced boat, but as it became clear he really wanted a dive industry job, we suggested that he spend some time on the boat that specializes in Discover Scuba Diving. He did. He learned the deckhand job. He graduated DM and we hired him immediately for that job (limited diving and a lot of hard work getting DSD participants ready to dive and supervising students on the surface as instructor is under water). He performed that job for the 8 weeks he was in the OWSI program. We only had him weekdays while he was in school, but he did pretty much anything he was qualified to do including massive tank shuffling by truck when one of our shop compressor went down for a week. He graduated OWSI and spent a couple weeks getting MSDT. Couldn't wait to hire him. He'd been seeing DSD programs for 3 months, was intimately familiar with all the sites and all the programs. Friendly, hard worker, and always willing to do whatever the operation needed. No brainier hire. If and when he decides to leave to see another part of the world he will leave with highest recommendation.
Now, we could have compressed that training into one month, but at the end he would have been qualified and not experienced. He also would have received one month BAH instead of three. In the long program we couldn't wait to hire him, in the short program we may have hired him.

Excuse the long answer to the short question,

 

[Father]

Aloha Scubaboard,

Island Divers Hawaii's associated professional dive training program is called Hawaii Scuba University. The Divemaster, Instructor, MSDT and IDC Staff programs are all VA approved programs. You can find our school one the WEAMS institutions search under Non College Degree programs for the state of Hawaii.
For vets that are interested you can goto
WEAMS Public
School Name: Hawaii Scuba University
Program Type: Non College Degree
click on the picture of the state of Hawaii
You can find Hawaii Scuba University there.

The website is in the process of relaunch, but the 2014 start dates are accurate. A new program starts every 10 weeks and goes up to MSDT (you'll need 25 certs to move onto IDC Staff). You can jump in at your current level of training with prior credit issued. Chp 30 and 33 benefits cover all tuition and fees, you are only out of pocket for PADI fees and books. As noted in this thread, IE exam fees can be reimbursed by VA. BAH is currently approx $2200 a month in Hawaii, enough to cover living expenses on the island. We are not particularly active on Scubaboard, but there are links on the website to contact the registrar, a vet, who you can provide you more information. For 2014 we have 2 course directors on staff for the program, as well as 4 dive boats, a 100m pool (yes really, it's 100m and 15ft in the diving well), and an active local diver & tourism market. The University has mostly been advertised by word of mouth, but that is likely going to change this year as we start to reach out to the national market.

As it turns out, Hawaii is kinda a fun place to scuba dive as well.

So the answer is: We CAN do it, we just don't. Caveat: If you really want us to, we will, organize 4 participants and we'll make it happen.

Thanks for the response. Much appreciated.

At Chattahoochee Scuba in GA you can use the GI for any course.Chattachoochee Scuba-G.I. Bill Program

I got a response from Chattahoochee Scuba and was a little surprised by the additional requirements to do DM. The normal pre-req is AOW and Rescue. Their program requires
Boat
Cavern
Deep
DAN DEMP
Drift
Digital Underwater Photographer
Equipment Specialist
Fill Station Operator
Night
Search and Recovery
Underwater Navigator
Wreck

Is this normal for schools that are approved through the VA to accept the GI Bill?

 

[Jerome O'Neil]

My dad did this. He was a firefighter in the Air Force (later to be fire chief at JBLM when it was just McCord AFB) so rescue and recovery dive training was something the VA would cover. He used to say he was going to college "Studying VA Benefits."

The Montgomery GI Bill (the one I got) sucked wind. The current one is pretty damn generous, but I don't know if it covers this. I got PE credits for being SCUBA certified, so perhaps it does.

 

[NAM001]

excluding rossional diving classes like salvage ect. Use you gi bill for real classes. Many schools have contracts with padi where you can get a class for 30 usd and the state pays the rest as long as you are in college or carrying a certain load. At 30 a class you can go form zero to hero ow to dive master for about 200 usd. Take trimix and RB also and cave/wreck courses if you can at that price. Its a tremendous opportunity dive master in 2 months isf you can get in the 50 dives for it.

 

[Father]

excluding rossional diving classes like salvage ect. Use you gi bill for real classes. Many schools have contracts with padi where you can get a class for 30 usd and the state pays the rest as long as you are in college or carrying a certain load. At 30 a class you can go form zero to hero ow to dive master for about 200 usd. Take trimix and RB also and cave/wreck courses if you can at that price. Its a tremendous opportunity dive master in 2 months isf you can get in the 50 dives for it.

Good info.
I've already gotten my BS through the VA Chap 31.
I still have my post-9/11 and have no intentions of going for my masters.
I was looking at commercial diving but I feel like I'm too old, broke, and paid too high in my current job to go backwards.
Getting my PADI instructor would be a supplemental income.

 

[IslandDiversHI]

Thanks for the response. Much appreciated.



I got a response from Chattahoochee Scuba and was a little surprised by the additional requirements to do DM. The normal pre-req is AOW and Rescue. Their program requires
Boat
Cavern
Deep
DAN DEMP
Drift
Digital Underwater Photographer
Equipment Specialist
Fill Station Operator
Night
Search and Recovery
Underwater Navigator
Wreck

Is this normal for schools that are approved through the VA to accept the GI Bill?

Each school has their own program, and their own requirements. The only true normal is that if they are offering the ability to use VA educational benefits to participate in their program, then an official from the VA has at one point approved and reviewed the program, and if the state has an approving agency for vocational programs, then it has passed the state requirements as well. It is important to note that what a school requires for an educational program (this is the part the VA approves) and what PADI requires to progess to Divemaster can differ.