Wealthy Families Pay Up to $75,000 a Year for AI Schooling at Alpha as Districts Grapple With AI Limits

Fortune reports that some affluent families pay up to $75,000 per year to send their children to Alpha School, where AI tutors lead core instruction. A spokesperson told Fortune the school has more than 1,200 students and plans to expand to 50 campuses this year. Students spend two hours a day on core subjects with an AI tutor and afternoons in workshops, while human teachers called Guides motivate students but do not plan lessons or grade homework.

The event makes the unequal adoption conditions of AI education concrete: wealthy families can buy a full AI-tutor-plus-human-guide curriculum, while the report quotes Huriya Jabbar, a professor of education policy at the University of Southern California, saying public schools with fewer resources often cannot implement such an AI curriculum because of high teacher turnover and pressure to raise test scores. The report also cites 2025 College Board surveys showing about 84% of high school students use AI for homework help and one in five high schools allow AI use but have no formal policy, and a study of 26,811 Chinese students in grades seven through 12 found AI use boosted homework scores by 18% but tanked exam scores by 20%. These figures indicate that AI's effect in learning depends on tool design and how it is used, not simply on whether it is used. The gap between affluent families and public schools in AI teaching resources may widen, affecting educational equity and product-market stratification. Schools setting student-facing AI policies need to consider that homework performance and exam performance may diverge.