What's the going rate for tutoring a young elementary student?
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Anonymous
| Our daughter who is entering 3rd grade struggles a lot with math, and we are hoping to find her a tutor for the rest of the summer. Nothing complicated, just hoping that someone can help the basics "click" a little bit better for her. We asked the son of a friend who just finished his freshman year of college and told him we'd pay whatever the standard rate for this sort of thing might be. He suggested $30 per hour plus gas/travel time. Is this the norm? Friends had told me that they paid rates similar to babysitting rates, so I was surprised at this, especially since we're talking very basic math. The request to be paid for gas and travel time really raised my eyebrows, especially since we're not talking about a huge distance. Then again, we've never done this so maybe my expectations were off. Thanks for any feedback! |
Anonymous
| I own a tutoring business. $30 is cheap. |
Anonymous
| Tutoring is a lot more expensive than babysitting, in general. |
Anonymous
| For a well-qualified tutor, that is reasonable. For a college student, who doesn't have any experience working with young children, let along tutoring them, NO WAY! I'd pay no more than 10-15/hour, with no gas or other expenses or I'd find a qualified, experienced tutor. That kid is ridiculous! |
Anonymous
| i pay 60/hr for a math tutor for my similarly aged daughter. But the tutor is a retired teacher, and we don't pay her travel or gas. Just once a week over the last school year has made a huge difference in both my daughters math confidence and her math skills. |
Anonymous
I made that 35 years ago as a high school student. |
Anonymous
Maybe, but they weren't getting their money's worth. A QUALIFIED tutor is worth more. A college kid with no education experience, um, no. |
Anonymous
|
I think that may be a little on the high side. My college age DD just finished a slew of sessions with a 7-year high school calculus teacher who has her masters degree in math (and has prior tutoring experience) for $50/hour. DD met her at the local library, and no travel was included.
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Anonymous
| I work for a tutoring company- that's on the low end, even for elementary tutors. |
Anonymous
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My DH, a teacher, charges $60 an hour.
Your comments about her being young, and about it being "basic math" are irrelevant. Tutoring is tutoring, whether it's AP Calculus or second-grade math - the work is the same. The effort is the same. $30/hour is cheap. |
Anonymous
|
Hmm. Interesting. I'm really surprised people pay this much! I figured $20/hr maxx, since that was more than this kid is going to make doing any other job this summer. I obviously would expect to pay more if I were using a teacher or a professional tutoring company. And I still disagree with the PP about whether it's relevant that this is very basic stuff. I would, and probably will, pay more for someone to help with skills that I cannot effectively cultivate myself, like AP calculus. That is more specialized work and therefore should demand a higher price. But for addition, subtraction, multiplication tables...?
Anyway, I'd be interested to hear from other parents who use NONprofessional tutors - older kids rather than teachers or Kumon stuff. Is $30 plus gas and travel time a fair rate? |
Anonymous
yes but a tutoring company is different than paying an individual directly for tutoring. |
Anonymous
|
I have a teaching license (never taught in the schools, was the director of a Boys & Girls Club instead), with a math minor and I tutor elementary aged students for $30/hr.
Is the college student working towards a degree in math or teaching? If so, then I'd think about paying $20-$25/hr, but nothing more. They're in college, and not very far into their studies at that. |
Anonymous
| I use a recent college grad (math major from an Ivy) in the neighborhood and pay $50/hr. This is for my now rising 4th grader. He does a really good job and my DS really likes him. I did think that was a little high but we saw a huge difference pretty quickly. |
Anonymous
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I just think that's outrageous and would never pay a young, inexperienced college student that much, unless they had taken education classes and tutored for many years. $15-20 at the most, no other expenses. He really better study hard if he expects to be paid that much, plus expenses, for something he has no experience with.
If I were you, I'd look around at other options. |