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I've been getting some requests that I start tutoring at college. I was wondering if anyone had any advice on what to charge, what the best method of help is, if it is a good idea to tutor, etc...
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I loved tutoring when I had the time for it. When I was in college I charged $20 an hour. (This was nearly twenty years ago.) By the time I was a credentialed teacher, that had gone up to $60 an hour.
(Depends how much work you want. Times have changed, and yet I don't know that you can really hope to get much work charging much more than $20 as an undergrad.)
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Charge whatever you feel comfortable charging. I've seen people charge as little as $10/hour for their time; I've also seen people get paid $1,000 a month for a one hour tutoring lesson every week, plus bonuses if the student did well on tests.
Best method of help is something you have to determine for yourself, as people learn differently and those requiring tutors are often having difficulty learning through traditional means.
Tutoring can be very trying: lots of people get really frustrated with their students, for any number of reasons; I'm sure the teachers of Hatrack can offer you more insight into this than I could.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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What subjects are you considering tutoring? I tutored economics, bunches of math classes, and a few philosophy and physics classes when I was in college. Of course, I was tutoring through our university's academic resource center, so I got paid very little - I think I started out at $5.50 and eventually moved up to $6.75. I also tutored on the side, particularly when finals were coming and students didn't have time to catch me during my work hours. I charged $20 to $40 depending on the subject matter and how much help the students wanted.
How you tutor really depends on the subject matter and the student - some students need "real world" examples to understand economics concepts, while others want to see things in a more mathematical/graphical way, for instance. I enjoyed tutoring immensely, and found it helped me understand the material better. It also led to some very lucrative summer jobs tutoring/teaching mathematics.
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First of all...the going rate here in my part of Central California is around $15 to $20 per hour for private sessions.
I haven't really done that much private tutoring, but I tutored off and on (mostly on) at both community college and university levels for close to ten years, doing both one-on-one and small-group (actually, sometimes it turned into large-group) tutoring. A few of the things I learned through experience (I'll probably leave a lot out, but I'm sleepy right now):
Make it clear that you don't do homework for the student. This will come up. When I tutored in a community college on-campus tutorial center, I had several students try to tell me that it was my job to do their homework...and they weren't even paying me (the school paid me; the service was free to students). Students who are paying you out of their own pocket are probably even more likely to try to pull this. Don't let them.
Be patient. But be firm. Make sure your students know they are expected to be prepared for the tutorial session. I've sent students away who claimed that they "didn't have time" to do their reading; my answer to that was "Fine. Here is a free hour for you; go read."
In classes that do "problems", don't solve the actual homework problems for the students. Solve similar problems that they can use as a model to solve their assignments. Also, when presented problems to solve, make sure that they are not from take-home exams. In that case, it is especially important that you don't solve the actual problem they come to you with. Seriously, I've seen a lot of students try to get tutors to do their take-home exams for them without really letting on that it was a take-home exam.
Encourage specific questions rather than a blanket "I don't understand" (this will usually come as a wail or a whine). Maybe they don't understand any of the material; still encourage them to formulate specific questions, starting at the beginning, if necessary. Your job is not to re-lecture everything their instructors have presented in class.
Ersomaniac is correct...different students learn in different ways. At the first session with a student, take ten minutes or so to ask the student how they learn best. Also, if an approach isn't working, don't be afraid to try some other approach.
Sometimes students who come to you for tutoring will need help with study strategies and time management more than anything else. It would be a good idea to collect study hints and test-taking strategies and related information that you can share with your students when the occasion arises.
As far as ESL students...patience will be especially important. I can recall tutorial sessions where the student was so lacking in English skills that we just sat and stared at each other for the full hour. Most will not be in that position, but you must be very clear in your language. And remember, not all ESL students, especially those who have only been in the US for a short time, will get colloquialisms, slang, figures of speech, and the like. They've probably learned English in a classroom setting, and often they will only have learned formal English. Expect some of them, again those who have not been immersed in an English-language environment for very long, to be fairly literal in their understanding of the language.
As I read that last part back, it sounds awfully condescending, and I'm sorry for that. But I have tutored students from all over the world (Africa, Asia, Europe, South America) and all this is from direct experience. You will find that all of what I wrote will apply to some ESL students and none of it will apply to some of them, and part of it will apply to part of them. "ESL students" is not a monolithic group, but a collection of individuals with individual experiences with English. You will also run into ESL students who have a better grasp of English than some students who were born and raised speaking English.
Tutoring is an adventure. You'll likely learn much more than you teach, both in subject matter and in general. Enjoy the experience.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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$20 / hour for private lessons, until you get too much business at that price. When that happens, raise your prices until you again get the amount of business you want.
Tutor.com is always looking for good math and science tutors. They pay $8/hour for the first month, then $10/hour for the first year, then $12/hour for second year and up. It's a great college student gig because it pays decent, it's good as a part time job (most of the hours are in the afternoons and evenings), and you don't have to commute or have work clothes. You just log in online. So you can work from anywhere you have internet access.
They also support any private tutoring you do, and give you access to students, and the online classroom for private tutoring. They handle billing as well. It's a schweet gig. I would do it for my job if it only paid 5 times as much.
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My son tutors two people presently, but has tutored off and on for five years or more. (mostly the maths and sciences -- anything from algebra to Calc 2 has been requested, and basic biology through bio chem and above).
He has set his rate at $12.50 per hour, but a two-hour minimum per session -- to make it worth the gas to drive to meet the student. So for most his clients, it's once a week for two hours ($25), four session a month ($100/month) approx. That seems easy enough for them to figure and deal with.
He knows he could ask more, but most are poor college students, and friends, and he doesn't want to feel like he's being greedy.
When he was being paid THROUGH the university (back when he was a student) to tutor, they only paid him $7 per hour.
Although he hasn't raised his rates in over three years now -- maybe he will think about that.
quote:Originally posted by Farmgirl: He knows he could ask more, but most are poor college students, and friends, and he doesn't want to feel like he's being greedy.
I think that is an excellent consideration FG.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
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Around here, the generally accepted rate for private tutoring by a college student is $20 an hour, though I am generally known to be a bleeding heart and I would take whatever they could pay. That's why I ended up tutoring the entire college soccer team, basically, for free.
I've also had a lot of experience with ESL, both in teaching English and in tutoring in math for students who spoke very little English. When tutoring math and other subjects, I greatly relied on pictures and nonverbal examples for those students whose English was exceptionally poor. If you have more questions on that subject, you can post them here or e-mail me separately. I have a lot of stories!
Posts: 340 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I just wanted to suggest that you sort of feel around for the going rate for a tutor in the fields you plan on tutoring. When I tutored at NC state, the going rate for (guess what) math help was 10-15$/hr, but at U. Penn, it was 35-50$/hr.
Posts: 168 | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
Thanks for all the advice. In the end I found out that the school offers free tutoring to full-time students. I directed all my friends to that and if they felt it wasn't sufficient we could work something out.
Posts: 2489 | Registered: Jan 2002
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quote:$20 / hour for private lessons, until you get too much business at that price. When that happens, raise your prices until you again get the amount of business you want.
Or you can cull the students by more arty criteria like potential and quality of their character.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by MEC: Thanks for all the advice. In the end I found out that the school offers free tutoring to full-time students. I directed all my friends to that and if they felt it wasn't sufficient we could work something out.
When I tutored at community college, tutoring was available free for any students registered at the school, full or part time. However, there were only a finite number of tutors available (usually somewhere between 40 and 50 tutors were on staff each semester) and they were only available for a finite number of hours (most tutors, because they were student workers, were limited to 19 hours work per week, as in any campus job in the district). However, with a student body of upwards of 20,000 in any given semester, there was still plenty of work for tutors who wanted to do private work as well. In fact, I knew some tutors, especially in math and science, who put in twice as many hours some weeks doing private tutoring than they did working for the school.
So, I wouldn't be surprised it you can still find students who are willing to pay for private tutoring. There were several tutors during the time I was tutoring who had plenty of students coming in for free hours and then paying $15 or $20 dollars per hour for extra private sessions as well.
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