Tutoring is the best-evidenced intervention in education and one of the hardest to turn into a scalable business. Decades of randomized trials show that frequent, structured tutoring can produce large learning gains, and after COVID-19 US districts spent billions of federal relief dollars trying to deliver it. At the same time, the consumer side of "academic help" (test prep, homework-help subscriptions, Q&A sites) was among the first EdTech markets hit by generative AI: Chegg, the category leader, lost roughly 48% of its market value in one day in May 2023 and saw revenue fall ~39% in 2025 alone. This section covers tutoring formats and their evidence, the economics of tutoring marketplaces and programs, the test-prep market, homework help, and how AI is changing all three.
What the study covers
- 1Overview: three markets that share a learner
- 2The evidence on tutoring
- 3Mechanics and economics of tutoring businesses
- 4Test prep
- 5Homework help and the generative-AI shock
- 6Key numbers
- 7Landmark companies and cases
- 8Pitfalls
- 9How an expert thinks about it
- 10Glossary
Technical exhibits
Worked examples, checklists and case studies included with this study.
Tutoring Economics Worked Example
Stylized district cost-effectiveness comparison of four tutoring models, and the unit economics of a tutoring marketplace, computed by script
Chegg and the Generative AI Shock Case Study
How the homework-help leader was disrupted between 2023 and 2026, and what it teaches about content moats
High Dosage Tutoring Program Checklist
Checklist for districts buying tutoring and for vendors building programs that hold up at scale