Tutoring reaches students through schools, private providers, and national programs. In the United States, 82% of public schools offered some type of tutoring during the 2023–24 school year, while 6% to 7% of families with children ages 6 to 17 paid for tutoring in 2022. The statistics below describe the size of the tutoring workforce, the types of support schools provide, who receives it, and how private tutoring is distributed.
Contents
- Tutoring work and pay in the United States
- School vacancies and the need for extra support
- How public schools deliver tutoring
- How effective schools consider tutoring
- England’s National Tutoring Programme
- Tutoring participation and provider patterns
- Private tutoring access and spending
Tutoring work and pay in the United States
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 215,500 tutor jobs in 2024. Employment is projected to reach 216,800 in 2034, a gain of 1,300 jobs, or 1% over the decade. The same projection includes about 37,100 tutor openings per year, on average, between 2024 and 2034. Annual openings can reflect replacement needs as well as newly created jobs.
Pay varies substantially across the occupation. In May 2024, the median annual wage for U.S. tutors was $40,090, and the median hourly wage was $19.27. The lowest-paid 10% earned less than $28,430, while the highest-paid 10% earned more than $78,810. These are national wage measures from the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, not a guarantee for a particular subject, employer, schedule, or location.
For context, the median annual wage for all occupations was $49,500 in May 2024. The median for other teachers and instructors was $44,220. Tutor wages also differed by the reported employment setting:
| Employment setting | Median annual wage, May 2024 |
|---|---|
| Elementary and secondary schools, local | $46,360 |
| Other schools and instruction, private | $40,720 |
| Educational support services, private | $39,460 |
| Colleges, universities, and professional schools, state | $35,870 |
The BLS also listed comparison occupations with higher 2024 median pay: adult basic and secondary education and ESL teachers, $59,950; kindergarten and elementary school teachers, $62,310; middle school teachers, $62,970; special education teachers, $64,270; high school teachers, $64,580; school counselors and advisors, $65,140; and postsecondary teachers, $83,980. Teacher assistants had a lower comparison median of $35,240.
School vacancies and the need for extra support
The National Center for Education Statistics and the Institute of Education Sciences School Pulse Panel measured staffing conditions in October 2023. At that point, 37% of public schools were operating with at least one teaching vacancy, and 21% had multiple teaching vacancies. Across all public-school teaching positions, 3% were vacant. Vacancy rates were higher in several specialized areas: 6% for special education positions, 5% for career or technical education positions, and 5% for ESL or bilingual education positions.
Non-teaching vacancies were also widespread. In October 2023, 45% of public schools had at least one non-teaching staff vacancy, and 29% had multiple vacancies. Six percent of all public-school non-teaching positions were vacant. Tutor positions had an 11% vacancy rate, compared with 8% for classroom aide positions and 7% for transportation staff positions.
Schools reported operational effects associated with these vacancies. Forty-two percent said vacancies increased the need to use non-teaching staff outside their intended duties, and 40% said vacancies increased the need to use teachers outside their intended duties. Twenty-eight percent reported increased class sizes, while 24% said vacancies required sharing teachers or staff with other schools.
These figures describe staffing conditions, not a direct measure of tutoring quality. They do show why tutoring may operate alongside regular instruction: schools were managing both staffing gaps and additional academic needs.
How public schools deliver tutoring
The School Pulse Panel estimated that 44% of public-school students began the 2023–24 year behind grade level in at least one academic subject. For the prior school year, the corresponding estimate was 49%. These are school-reported estimates for public-school students and refer to academic performance relative to grade level.
Against that background, 82% of public schools offered some type of tutoring in 2023–24. The reported delivery formats were not mutually exclusive, so their percentages should not be added together:
- 52% of public schools offered standard tutoring.
- 39% offered high-dosage tutoring.
- 14% offered self-paced tutoring.
- 8% offered on-demand online tutoring.
- 10% offered another type of tutoring.
Student participation was lower than the share of schools offering programs. Across all public schools, 11% of students received standard tutoring, 11% received high-dosage tutoring, and 6% received self-paced tutoring. One percent accessed on-demand tutoring programs. Because schools could offer multiple formats, these student percentages also should not be treated as one combined total.
Funding patterns differed by format. Among schools offering high-dosage tutoring, 70% used federal funds and 49% used district or school financial funding. For standard tutoring, the corresponding figures were 55% and 46%. Among schools offering self-paced tutoring, 42% used federal funds and 47% used district or school funding. For on-demand tutoring, 33% used federal funds and 32% used district or school funding.
How effective schools consider tutoring
Schools did not rate every tutoring format equally. In the School Pulse Panel results, 38% of schools rated high-dosage tutoring very or extremely effective, compared with 22% for standard tutoring and 22% for self-paced tutoring. The survey also reported 18% for on-demand online tutoring and 27% for other tutoring.
A separate presentation of the 2023–24 results among schools providing each format reported slightly different percentages: 52% of schools providing high-dosage tutoring rated it very or extremely effective, compared with 27% for standard tutoring, 17% for self-paced tutoring, 18% for on-demand online tutoring, and 27% for other tutoring. The denominators differ, so these two sets of results should be read as separate reported measures rather than combined or directly substituted for one another.
High-dosage tutoring received the strongest positive assessment in another measure: 90% of schools providing it rated it at least moderately effective in improving student outcomes. That result is a school assessment, not a controlled estimate of causal impact. It also does not mean that every student receiving high-dosage tutoring experienced the same result.
England’s National Tutoring Programme
England’s Department for Education reported that the National Tutoring Programme delivered 6,168,958 tutoring courses between November 2020 and August 2024. Annual course totals were 310,717 in 2020/21, 2,215,386 in 2021/22, 2,142,822 in 2022/23, and 1,500,033 in 2023/24.
Participation among schools changed over the same reported years. The programme’s participation rate was 87.4% in 2021/22, 73.8% in 2022/23, and 59.4% in 2023/24. In 2023/24, secondary schools had a 78.5% participation rate, compared with 56.3% for primary schools and 50.6% for other schools.
The 2023/24 programme delivered 16.4 million tutoring hours. The average course lasted 10.9 hours, and 1.07 million pupils received tutoring through the programme. Among tutored pupils, 45.2% were known to have been eligible for free school meals during the previous six years, while 28.1% were known to have special educational needs.
The course totals and participation rates are measures of the National Tutoring Programme in England. They should not be interpreted as U.S. figures or as a worldwide estimate of tutoring activity. The reported period also matters: the programme figures span November 2020 through August 2024, while the 2023/24 measures refer to that school year.
Tutoring participation and provider patterns
Project On-Track data from the Institute of Education Sciences Regional Educational Laboratory Appalachia provide a separate view of school-based tutoring. Sixty-six percent of Project On-Track schools offered tutoring during school, and 64% offered it more than twice per week. The rural and nonrural results differed: 92% of rural Project On-Track schools offered tutoring during school, compared with 47% of nonrural schools.
The people delivering tutoring also varied. Current teachers accounted for 55% of Project On-Track tutors, while retired teachers accounted for 12%. Among students who completed a full year of Project On-Track, 42% improved to a lower risk category after one year of tutoring. This is a reported outcome for that project population and period; it is not a general success rate for every tutoring program.
The U.S. private tutoring market expanded in the Annenberg Institute at Brown University analysis. Private tutoring centers grew from about 3,000 locations in 1997 to 10,000 in 2022. The underlying dataset included about 24,000 unique firms and approximately 33,000 locations across all years. Tutoring firms were 40 times more numerous than test-preparation services firms, and 99.6% of business observations were matched to a school district.
Private tutoring access and spending
The Brown University paper, citing the Consumer Expenditure Survey, estimated that 6% to 7% of U.S. families with children ages 6 to 17 paid for tutoring in the past year in 2022. Among months with a tutoring purchase, those families spent an average of about $437. The top 10% of reported monthly tutoring spending was closer to $1,200, while the top 5% was closer to $2,000.
Access was uneven geographically. More than half of private tutoring centers were in areas in the top income quintile. In 2020, 60% of tutoring centers were in areas representing the top fifth of the income distribution. These figures describe where centers were located and how spending was distributed; they do not establish that every family in a high-income area used tutoring or that families elsewhere lacked all tutoring options.
Taken together, the statistics show several distinct parts of tutoring: a U.S. occupation with a $40,090 median annual wage in May 2024, widespread public-school availability in 2023–24, large-scale national delivery in England, and a private market concentrated more heavily in higher-income areas. For students and families comparing support options, the format, provider setting, delivery frequency, and measured population are essential context for interpreting any tutoring statistic.