by Associated Press, originally published in boston.com on 5/19/10

FRAMINGHAM — Test prep and online learning company Princeton Review Inc. said yesterday it will no longer offer its free after-school tutoring program once the current school year ends.

The company said it will close certain program offices and offer severance to full-time employees. The company didn’t state how many jobs will be affected.

Calls to the company were not immediately returned.

Princeton Review said it will incur about $2.6 million in expenses for the quarters ended June 30 and Sept. 30 relating to lease termination and layoffs.

The company said “recent philosophical changes at the state and federal levels have significantly altered the landscape’’ for such programs and hurt growth opportunities.

The program, called Supplemental Educational Services, worked with about 100 school districts across the country to create free tutoring services for students. The decision does not affect Princeton Review’s test preparation business.

Click here to read more.

Popularity: 8% [?]

• Permalink
• Print
• Comment

by Sheri Gassaway, originally published in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat on 3/30/10

As a Clayton High School honors student, Charles “Chuck” Cohn struggled to find a tutor to help him with several of his advanced placement and honors classes. He sought help from national tutoring firms, local university department heads and some of his friends who had used tutors. However, he could not find a personal tutor to help him with all four subjects.

“It’s tough to find tutors in advanced subjects,” Cohn said. “The national firms don’t offer one-on-one tutoring in specific subjects and when I did find a tutor, he was only able to tutor me in one subject.”

As undergraduate student at Washington University in 2007, Cohn took an entrepreneur course. He recalled the trouble he had finding a personal tutor to help him with multiple subjects and used that idea as part of a class project.

“I wanted to be an entrepreneur since I was 6 years old,” he said. “I came up with a lot of mediocre ideas, but realized from my experience that high-end tutoring would help fill a substantial need, and it was scalable.”

At the beginning of the course, Cohn created a website for his new business endeavor, called Varsity Tutors, and hired two friends as tutors. The group contacted local middle and high schools about providing one-on-one tutoring services.

“The feedback we received from the first two clients was great,” Cohn said. “We completely booked our first two tutors, and by the end of the course, we had hired seven or eight more tutors.”

Click here to read more.

Popularity: 8% [?]

• Permalink
• Print
• Comment