Are Peer Tutors Becoming More Important?

p strongPeer tutors form a growing part of the college tutoring workforce, especially where programs need scale and students value help from someone close to the course experience./strong/p p Primary Research Group found that the mean number of student tutors employed by sampled programs rose from 31.8 in June 2023 to 33.54 in June 2024. At community colleges, 31.23% of tutoring sessions were conducted by peers who were currently enrolled students./p p Peer tutors can offer credibility, flexible scheduling and a lower cost per hour than professional staff. They also require structured recruitment, subject verification, training, supervision and a reliable escalation path. A strong student in a course is not automatically prepared to diagnose misconceptions or work with a distressed learner./p p Programs should benchmark pay, turnover, training hours and the ratio of supervisors to student tutors. Course outcomes matter, but so do reliability, student satisfaction and the tutor's own development. Longer relationships may justify deeper training four-year colleges in the survey reported an average tutoring relationship of 8.14 weeks./p p Peer tutoring should be treated as an educational program as well as a labor model. When roles and supervision are clear, institutions can expand access while building communication, leadership and subject mastery among the tutors themselves./p p  /p