The rise of the private coach at university

Emma Jacobs

One morning Madeleine Kasson received an email from an undergraduate, sent at 5am. Please write my essay — it is due in today, it requested. She declined the solicitation, as she does with all such requests from students. This is a common misunderstanding of her work as a private tutor to undergraduates.

This new breed of tutors catering to undergraduates is growing (admittedly from a low base). Once the guilty secret of schoolchildren seeking to get into selective schools or gain top marks in exams, private tutors are now helping British undergraduates and even postgraduates at universities. As many teenagers and twenty-somethings start their new university terms, some will be seeking the help of tutors, like Ms Kasson. Some even assist graduates applying for jobs in banks and professional services firms.

Edd Stockwell, co-founder of Tutorfair, a non-profit organisation that also provides tutoring to children whose parents cannot afford the fees, has seen the number of requests for degree-level tutorials double in the past year. Luke Shelley, director of Tavistock Tutors, says its services for undergraduates have grown “rapidly” in the past six years.

In extreme cases this might involve intensive tutoring throughout the degree course.

Adam Caller, founder of Tutors International, describes one case where a father had forced his daughter to enrol on a business degree — rather than her original choice of English — with the aspiration that she could one day take over the family business. In order to school her in a subject that she had little interest in, a tutor taught her for five hours every working day for three years. The bill came to more than £400,000. She graduated with a 2:1.