How the new SAT could affect the tutoring industry
In my last post, I took the College Board to task for its boast that its partnership with Khan Academy has led to a 19% decrease in the use of paid prep, presumably defined as classes or tutoring, although the College Board fails to specify. Aside from the questionable basis for that statistic (exactly how was it obtained? what were the characteristics of the groups surveyed? how were the demographic changes incurred by the adoption of the SAT as a state test taken into account?), I do think it’s worth exploring the question of just how the new SAT might affect the tutoring industry.
For what it’s worth, I’ve heard from a number of tutors that their business is actually up this year, although those tutors tend to work with students for whom free, online prep is borderline irrelevant anyway.
I’m also aware that most experienced tutors are pushing their students toward the ACT for the foreseeable future. If there was indeed a drop in paid SAT preparation, it was almost certainly in some part due to students paying for ACT preparation instead.
What interests me here, however, is the assumption that students will be the ones driving the changes.
But what if it goes the other way as well? What if it turns out that tutors don’t want to prepare students for the new SAT? (more…)