Nerdify team of college tutors and nerds has conducted a research to find out why private tutoring is booming nowadays. When our research Nerds approached experts from industries far from education and explained the topic of this research, they were confused. Colleges and universities are designed to teach students knowledge and skills, and the very idea that many people could pay for additional tutoring seems unnatural for many. Moreover, when our interviewees found out that private tutoring market, according to some estimates, grows 7–9% per year and will reach $128 billion per 2020, some could not find words and ask Nerds “Why?”
Given the hefty price of the education, why students demand private tutoring if they already pay for professional services of college tutors?
Indeed, the motivation for the student to pay for extra education may seem obscure, considering how much is spent for school. For an undergraduate degree, the very minimum tuition fee is ~$4,000 per year in a community college. This applies if you study in your state and choose the cheapest option. Should you add a room, board, and other living expenses, sum increases to $12,000.
However, on average — and the average is what the majority faces — you may expect to pay $9,000 per year for a state public college, and $30,000 for a private non-profit institution. If you are an international student, then your tuition price tag will average $25,620 per year, with room and board on top.
Given the hefty price of the education, why students demand private tutoring so badly if they already pay for professional services of college tutors? Nerdify interviewed tutors, students, and researched literature — the answer was far from expected.
Private Tutor Is a Lifeline Against Expulsion
As we started our research on money, the financial aspect is one we begin with. The fact is — if the student is expelled from the college, her fees are non-refundable. Moreover, if the student also has a student loan, it should be repaid even if she failed to graduate. Therefore, acquiring the help of a professional private tutor, even for a price, may be needed to save the educational investment from poor grades.
While the expulsion due to academic performance in its legal meaning is an uncommon practice in the U.S., universities have found a way around to hold paid fees on their accounts. According to Gene Spafford, the professor at Purdue, in case of poor grades, universities will not drop the student out immediately — instead, they will let a poor student complete a semester. Then, however, the student will not be allowed to take further classes, and fees for a spent semester will not be returned.
It’s quite hard to get back all the tuition fees. Students still need to repay students loans right after ending the education, even if expulsion brought the end.
Even in the case of mid-semester expulsion, it’s quite hard to get paid the money back. Some universities would return fees for unused days only if student utilized less than 60% of course duration. This, however, excludes technology fees and other course-associated payments, which are non-refundable. Student loan borrowers should also be aware that after they end education — either after graduation or expulsion — they must begin the repayment of the debt. According to Federal Student Aid, repayment applies even to those who were under 18 at the beginning of education, and it’s quite hard to receive debt forgiveness. Hence, there is no surprise that students are ready to pay for anyone who can save them from expulsion.
Private tutors help to manage academic underachievement, boost up failing competencies. Also, they bring moral relief to students scared by sudden warning letters.
Richard Byrne, a Business Nerd at Nerdify, who specializes in emergency homework help, says that colleges never care about students who cannot keep the pace until the finals bang on the door.
“When students come to us, they usually have a paper due tomorrow, a couple of failed quizzes and total anxiety and confusion,” he said. “Academic advisors wait the end of the semester to approach with bad news and leave very tight time frames for fixing issues. Students are literally forced to fight for saving their tuition fees, and panic never helps in improvement of grades.”
Byrne says Nerd’s work would be much easier if colleges took better care about appropriately warning about academic performance issues. Right now, new students are usually guided to retrieve all the information on their academic problems first, and then Nerds start helping them to address the most critical tasks. On, online tutoring platform, Nerds often deal with revisions of course papers, help with literature reviews or mentor academic writing.
“Still, if students were warned about their problems in time, they’d have much better experience even on collaboration platform, as well as save quite a lot,” Byrne admits.
Private Tutoring is Money-Time Tradeoff for Working Students
However, only about 24% of private tutors’ clients on Nerdify are students with academic issues — the majority of client approach Nerds long before term exams. A vast share of these prudent students is those who have a job — either part-time or even full-time. Interestingly, the problem is not just in the lack of time.
College students spend 30 hours studying a week. Homework takes 17 hours more. Add the job on the top, and you’ll imagine the hard life of the working students.
According to the study by Association of American Colleges and Universities, full-time college students spend 30 hours studying per week to meet credit requirements — that is similar to four days of 9-to-5 employment. For online students, that is more manageable, but don’t forget about homework. According to Quorans, homework extends time expenses to 65 hours per week, which pretty matches the National Survey of Student Engagement, which says that homework wastes 17 hours on average for college students.
Even 50 hours per week, though, is like a 10-hour job, and the working students bear even more.
Some time expenses cannot be avoided with time management, and the inefficiency of college education brings some additionally. On-campus students have to attend lectures and labs, and legislators from Indianapolis are considering to impose attendance requirements for online students too. Those who want to get good grades, though, need to input sometimes 50% more time in homework than their average peers, according to the study by McMullen. However, the same study states that underpaid or inexperienced teachers, the size of the class and unbalanced homework assignment may significantly increase the time expenses of students.
Private tutors remove two-thirds of homework time by providing attention and personalized approach to students, which they are deprived of in college. That’s a killing feature of Nerds.
When we ask Nerds how they help students to do homework faster and better, they cite the Flunger et al.’s study, which revealed that effective learners spend less time on college homework and achieve more than their peers. The point is, however, that effectiveness of learning is not determined by time or effort. Instead, time spent on homework and outcomes are affected by student’s knowledge on how to learn, according to the study by the University of Minnesota.
Lucy Hernandez, an English Writing Nerd, recalls that students can reduce their homework time duration to only one-third of the time they used to spend.
“If colleges could help each student to fix their personal academic difficulties instead of forcing them to follow general rules, we could have a nation of brilliant writers.” Lucy states. “Every student of mine, even those who considered themselves untalented, had brilliant ideas to put in their essays. However, without scaffolding on their way, they struggled with writing for weeks.”
Online Tutoring Platform Helps Teaching Enthusiasts to Support Students in the Most Effective Way
Misha Hughes, a Ph.D. Nerd in Marketing, recalls the time when she worked in college with signs of disapproval in her eyes. “Every tutor, frankly, sees perfectly what each student need best. Someone is scared with research statistics, while others are confused why you should switch tenses within one research paper.”
She would like to provide personalized help for her college students, but she could not afford it while combining researcher’s and tutor’s positions. “When you have own grant project and classes, your mind wants nothing but go home at the end of the day. And that’s what all my colleagues do.
On online tutoring platform, things went differently for Misha. After she quit her tutor’s position and focused on research and her freelance stake at Nerdify, she realized that she actually teaches more than she used in college. “I usually appear online at night at Nerdify, and promptly find students who need urgent homework help — that is what I like the most.” — Lucy confessed. — “It’s like magic — students unusually think that their SWOT analysis requires days of research. Then, I come up with a template, directions to sources and mistakes corrections, and analysis is complete by 2 am.”
At Nerdify, we make everything that such perfect matches could happen every day on our collaboration platform. Our AI system learns to match instructions and problems of students with previous experience and academic credentials of Nerds, but that is not a limit to its functionality. For instance, to improve trust between students and Nerds, we experiment with their demographic match as per the study by Gershenson et al. It includes state of residence and education, cultural background and slang used, or college attended — all that makes sure that a Nerd and a student will find common ground. Another feature is that AI matches the mentoring style of Nerds and expectations of students, which is critical to learning efficiency — by analyzing their writing style in chat and collecting their feedback.
Why Nerdify Believes that Online Tutors are the Future
At this moment, we established a platform that helps tutors and professionals to become Nerds — private assistants who help with business and college issues. However, the primary feature is what students receive — personalized help 24/7, through secure messaging and texting channels.
We keep getting closer and closer to fight our the most bitter enemy — uncertainty. The biggest issue of any student is that she is uncertain of what to expect — from college, academic task or a private tutor.
The education system, however, makes attempts to improve too. For instance, the Brookings Institution came to realize that the current post-secondary system isn’t working for all. On our part, we make sure to serve students right now with everything they need to succeed in college.
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