Exam Preparation and Tutoring Services NAICS 611691

May 15, 2025 - State Partners With Test Prep Firm

• The state of Illinois is partnering with education services company Kaplan on a pilot program to provide free test preparation services for students at all 12 of the state's public universities. The goals are to provide an incentive for students to remain in Illinois and to address potential workforce shortages that the state is projected to face. Exam preparation and tutoring services may benefit if other states launch similar programs. The Illinois Student Assistance Commission program will provide access to Kaplan's suite of prep work for professional licensing exams, graduate-level admissions exams and credential exams, including the LSAT, MCAT and Illinois bar exam, among others. The pilot program will also be rolled out at five community colleges.
• Private tutoring for K–12 students has seen explosive growth both nationally and globally, according to Education Next. The number of in-person, private tutoring centers in the US more than tripled between 1997 and 2022 but they are concentrated mostly in high-income areas. Education Next cites the increasing availability of education technology, decreasing trust in schools and instructional quality, and shifting attitudes around personalization as key drivers of growing demand for private tutoring.

• Selective colleges and universities are seeing compelling data from their recent test-optional classes that they believe reinforces the value of standardized testing, according to Hafeez Lakhani, founder of Lakhani Coaching. The data suggests that standardized testing may have more value than a high school GPA in predicting undergraduate success, according to Lakhani. Stanford University’s website notes, “Performance on standardized tests is an important predictor of academic performance at Stanford, a review by the faculty Committee on Undergraduate Admission and Financial Aid has confirmed.” Some experts believe more highly-ranked universities will go back to requiring standardized tests as an assessment metric, especially as selective schools experience record-high application volume alongside record-low acceptance rates, according to Forbes.
• Exam preparation and tutoring industry employment increased slightly during the first three months of 2025, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Exam preparation and tutoring service industry sales are forecast to increase at a 4.52% compounded annual rate from 2025 to 2029, faster than the growth of the overall economy, according to Inforum and the Interindustry Economic Research Fund, Inc.