Some names have been changed to protect privacy.

In a school district where 93.6% of schools scored three stars or higher on a five-star academic achievement rating, Montgomery County’s academic pressure has fostered a booming business for tutoring. With competition intensifying and top colleges’ acceptance rates decreasing from 24% in 2003 to 8.39% in 2023, parents seek opportunities to give their child an extra advantage. Many hire help from Bethesda Scholars, one of the several popular tutoring businesses in the area. 

Student instructors are an increasingly important part of the tutoring industry, with American tutors most likely to be between the ages of 16 and 29. Jane, an MCPS student and Bethesda Scholars tutor, said she appreciates the digital framework the company has built.

“I really like their platform,” Jane said. “I think they do get a lot of clients, and there are a lot of opportunities for work on the app, which is very nice.” 

While some of Bethesda Scholars’ Whitman employees claim that the business provides them with a bolstering platform to attract a steady stream of clientele, others also claim it takes an outsized share of the profits. 

“I found out from a client who said, ‘Hey, I’m paying $50 an hour for this, and it’s adding up,” Jane said. “That is when I found out they did not disclose the disparity in prices to me.”  

Economic uncertainty and unemployment have brought enhanced scrutiny on tutoring and other businesses that are part of the “gig economy,” where an overhead organization links clients with service providers. Vendors sign on as freelancers or under short-term contracts, sometimes with fewer benefits than actual employees would have and at a wider range of profit shares.  

Twin brothers and Whitman alums Askel (‘22) and Pascal Bell (‘22) founded Bethesda Scholars in 2022 to address the growing demand for peer-to-peer tutoring in Whitman and Montgomery County communities. The company offers opportunities to connect high school students from Bethesda and college kids in the D.C. area to clients, allowing them to book online or in-person sessions.

Askel said his company’s efforts have made it easier for tutors to attract clients and create effective tutoring schedules. 

“We take care of the infrastructure, that means scheduling, client communication, vetting tutors and handling payments so that the tutors can focus entirely on teaching,” Aksel said. “We understand the frustration, but a lot of what we do is invisible work. There’s a whole backend operation that’s necessary for this to run smoothly.”

The Bethesda Scholars business has a Squarespace-based system designed to manage tutoring sessions efficiently. The system includes each client, their education needs and their home information, allowing tutors to select the jobs that work best for them. Payments are processed directly through the Bethesda Scholars website, eliminating the need for direct client-tutor compensation communication.

MCPS student Sarah has worked with Bethesda Scholars for three years and doesn’t believe the argument for overhead costs justifies the percentages taken. She said tutors provide the core service and therefore deserve a larger cut of the profits, and dealing with scheduling and payments is not enough to justify a 50% cut. 

“I tutor three times a week, earning $25 per session, meaning that I make $300 per month, which usually I wouldn’t be upset about if it weren’t for the fact that I knew Bethesda Scholars was getting $300 too,” Sarah said. “Did they sit with a 15-year-old for an hour and teach them math?”

Bethesda Scholars charges at least $40 per session, with fees adjusted based on the tutor’s experience level. The income for student tutors, however, is a flat rate of $25. 

These margins are not unique to Bethesda Scholars — other tutoring companies operating in the Bethesda area follow similar business models. ‘Club Z!’ tutoring charges clients around $50-$90 per private tutoring session, while student tutors’ salaries are listed as earning $18-$30, depending on their experience. Larger tutoring platforms, such as Varsity Tutors, may charge clients up to $95 per hour, while their tutors typically earn between $15 and $40 an hour. 

Pascal elaborates on the unseen responsibilities of the tutoring management, answering possible inquiries concerning the need for overhead charges. 

“People don’t see the hours spent vetting resumes, resolving disputes or fielding emails at 11 p.m. from parents who want to change their tutor,” Pascal said. 

Bethesda Scholars’ administrative work is distributed across a seven-member management team, whose responsibilities include resolving scheduling conflicts, interfacing with parents, reviewing tutoring applications and distributing necessary resources for each unit student tutors may have to cover.

The Bell brothers said that managing Bethesda Scholars consumes a great portion of their time and requires an ample amount of funding to provide some families with financial aid.

“We’ve always tried to keep tutoring accessible— we offer financial aid and subsidized sessions for families that can’t afford the full price,” Pascal said. “That’s something we don’t advertise a lot, but it’s important to us. We’ve had cases where we match a tutor with a student and charge the family significantly less or sometimes nothing, and we still pay the tutor $25 flat. We take that out of our side, not theirs.”

According to employees, the current $25 flat salary is beneficial for tutors when a client has received financial aid; however, employees argue that this is not always the case. Complaints about the costs for transportation for in-person sessions indicate that gas money is not included in the tutor’s salary. Additionally, there are inconsistencies in the charges for in-person sessions themselves. 

“It is especially frustrating that, although Bethesda Scholars charges an extra five dollars for in-person sessions, none of that goes to the tutor,” Jane said. “Transportation can be very costly, especially when you’re taking jobs that are in D.C. or even 20 minutes away from your house.”

Gig workers share similar sentiments across the world, with many spending 30% to 50% of their earnings on expenses such as transportation, equipment and platform fees — many of which are essential to properly execute the work. Tutors’ critiques of Bethesda Scholars’ decision to maintain a flat rate of $25 mirror greater inspection of equity in gig-based work structures, where workers often have to cover uncompensated costs. 

The Bell brothers acknowledge that the $5 fee does not go to the tutors, but instead to the overhead management. They explain that this decision was made not to gain revenue, but to promote more online tutoring, which is safer and more convenient for high school student tutors. 

“We haven’t adjusted the tutor pay for in-person sessions because we didn’t want to discourage them from accepting those assignments,” Pascal said. “But we know that transportation can be a burden, and it’s something we’re still evaluating as we review our pay structure.”

Bethesda Scholars’ management emphasizes that their service is designed only to make tutoring easy and accessible for both high school students and tutors. Pascal said maintaining that $25 is an exceptionally reasonable rate, so those who take issue with the organization’s overhead percentage should consider working freelance. The Bethesda Scholars management’s goal is to create a realistic balance with which all employees can agree. 

“Ideally, everyone who works with us is happy and wants to be here,” Pascal Bell said. “That’s what we aim for.”