Tuition fee - is your tutor charging you the going rate for their tutoring?
There's no tuition fee for this lesson about tuition fees - it's absolutely free.
Checking your tuition fee : by Clive West
Tuition fee rates vary according to subject, level, number of students receiving the tuition together and location of the lessons. Please note that the following is a commercial assessment of tuition fees and relates to observations made over many years of tutoring and running a tuition agency. The salient matter here is the actual fee charged and should not be deemed a treatise on why one tutor is worth more than another. Obviously there will always be some tutors who charge more than others and, likewise, 'bargains' may be found. What a tutor is actually worth is largely subjective in any case.
Tuition subject
Maths (or math in the US), English and Sciences are all very popular subjects for tuition but, perhaps, because of their high level of popularity and the number of tutors providing the tuition, the prices are relatively low. Strangely (although not so when one considers the basic law of supply and demand), the less popular languages command a much higher fee. Generally, Scandinavian, Oriental and Eastern European are the most expensive costing as much as twice that of 'traditional' languages such as English, French, Spanish, German etc.
Tuition level
It is a convention in the tuition world that the higher the level, the more that is charged. It is certainly arguable that a well-trained primary (or elementary) tutor endeavouring to coach a child with extreme special needs is working every bit as hard as a university-level tutor teaching study skills to an undergraduate but that is not the way it works. The standard incremental fee stages are elementary - secondary - college - university - adult and corporate with the price increasing by about 50% between elementary and university level tuition.
Number of students
The number of students receiving the tuition together affects the price. Tutors generally get paid less than teachers with the primary argument being that teachers have to deal with a group (harder work) whereas a tutor tends to work on a one-to-one basis. As the number of students increases, then naturally the tutor will be much more in the role of a teacher. Typically a full-sized group starts at about 5 students. Given that a teacher might receive just under double the pay of a tutor, an increase of about 20% per extra student is typical.
Location of tuition
Tuition fees are fairly constant throughout Europe and the United States. Australia, India and the Far East (not Japan which is expensive) are all much cheaper - up to half the price. This difference in price is partly due to the lower (or higher) cost of living and the level of supply available. With the increase in online or web-based tuition, tutor agencies are able to take advantage of these lower rates to use tutors in countries with lower tuition fees to tutor in countries with high ones.
In summary
Don't pay more than you have to for your tuition but, always remember, that cheapest does not mean the best (and neither does most expensive). A good tutor will expect to be paid a reasonable remuneration for their time but it takes a certain type of person who is prepared to turn in out in all winds and weathers during what, for most of us, are anti-social hours. You can't do that on a regular basis if you don't like the work. Tutors who do the work for purely financial gain don't last.
About The Author
Clive West and his wife Damaris West spent 13 years running a tuition agency which provided tutors throughout the world. Their agency covered over 200 subjects and coached at all levels from early learning to beyond university.
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