Learning Centers Serve Individual Child?s Needs

Instead of making a car payment every month, some parents are paying about the equivalent to finance tutoring services in Northwest Arkansas.

That’s based on an annual rate of $12,000 at places like Sylvan Learning Center when it’s financed out over a longer period.

Learning centers surveyed for this article said the cost for a tutoring service can range anywhere from $37 to $60 per hour. Most students see that tutor an average of twice per week for two hours per session.

Based on their enrollment figures, at least 500 students in Washington and Benton counties attended tutoring services last school year.

The Sylvan Learning Centers Inc. franchise entered the Northwest Arkansas market in 1998. Two other educational franchises, Club Z In-Home Tutoring Services and Huntington Learning Center have opened locally in the last two years, in addition to Learning Rx, a center that offers cognitive skills training programs.

Jill Swift, regional director for the nine Sylvan Learning Centers owned by Kim and Jack Stanley, including locations in Bentonville and Fayetteville, said the Fayetteville Sylvan saw 100 students in 2004. The Stanleys opened the Bentonville location in May.

Heather Tandy, center director for Sylvan Learning Center in Fayetteville, said Sylvan’s base rate is $45 per hour.

The average student stays at least a semester, Tandy said. Sylvan sells its tutoring services to parents by the hour. There’s one instructor for every three students.

For example, after a $225 diagnostic assessment of the child, it could be determined that a child needs 100 hours of tutoring, which would cost about $4,500.

Most parents, Tandy said, opt for financing with a credit card or with an educational loan over two to 15 years through Sylvan, which uses SLM Financial Corp., commonly known as Sallie Mae.

Huntington and Learning Rx also offer SLM.

If parents pay up front, they get a 6 percent discount, Tandy said.

Swift said 80 percent to 90 percent of parents at area Sylvan centers use financing.

But what Sylvan does offer is a rate of return on investment.

“We have a guarantee,” said Tandy. “We guarantee from the first time you test with us that within 36 hours of tutoring, you will progress a grade level’s growth.”

She said the center only makes a 2 percent profit after its costs.

Huntington

Rich and Brenda Padilla opened the Huntington Learning Center franchise in Fayetteville in December 2003 because they were looking to own a new business. Both active in church youth activities, their passion for children led them to Huntington.

An average of 20 to 30 students per week sit at Huntington’s blue cubicles with pale lime-green tabletops. Huntington corporate dictates every sign and color used in the center, right down to the signature Huntington carpet and how the signs are hung. The green tabletops are supposed to stimulate learning. The navy blue, light blue and yellow paint colors on the walls are to produce a calming effect.

Rich Padilla said rates vary from $42 for a student in the third grade all the way up to 12th grade, or $60 per hour for SAT/ACT prep courses. Those younger than third grade are $52 per hour.

Rich Padilla said the majority of the students are middle/junior high school age. Most students are tutored with one tutor per four students. The youngest students are tutored one on one, thus a higher rate.

“Problems really start to surface in junior high,” he said.

A lot of the time a bad attitude masks the root of the problem, which is really a struggling student, Rich Padilla said.

Most students come for an hour and a half to two hours, two times per week, said Brenda Padilla. She said they have more than 40,000 pages of Huntington instructional materials.

Not every child is failing a subject, Brenda Padilla said. Some parents have “A” and “B” students who they think could make the move up to an advanced placement course.

Only 20 percent of Huntington customers have a severe learning disability, such as dyslexia or attention deficit disorder. In some cases, the skill set is already there, but it is a matter of building the student’s confidence, Rich Padilla said.

In larger metropolitan areas, learning centers have become “the thing to do,” Brenda Padilla said.

Club Z

Jim Dunwoody, owner of the area Club Z, said when he and his wife Kathy, a former teacher, bought their franchise in 2003, it cost them $32,000 in startup costs. A Sylvan or a Huntington would have cost them $250,000, he said.

On average, Dunwoody said, most students who come to Club Z see an average of a two-letter grade improvement within a 90-day period. In addition to providing on-site tutoring in the home, Club Z differs from Sylvan and Huntington because it works off the student’s school curriculum. Sylvan and Huntington have in-house instructional materials. Club Z employs about 75 tutors who handle an average of two students per day.

A Club Z tutor acts as an independent contractor to Club Z and receives about 45 percent of the hourly rate, which ranges from $37 to $53.The in-home system also eliminates most overhead, Dunwoody said.

Dunwoody said Club Z tutored 320 area students in the 2004-2005 school year. By the end of the fall 2005 semester he estimates he will have about 200 students signed up.

Sales of supplemental education instruction materials accounted for more than $3 billion nationwide in 2004, which was a 7 percent increase year over year, said Bob Resnick, founder of Education Market Research of Rockaway Park, N.Y.

Even though Sylvan has bigger brand recognition, Huntington, which was founded 28 years ago by Ray and Eileen Huntington, has actually been in the business two years longer.

Sylvan started in 1977 and has 776 franchises nationwide, according to Entrepreneur magazine’s Franchise 500 list, which recently ranked Sylvan at No. 51. Huntington was listed at No. 141 with 239 U.S. franchises in 2005, and Club Z was 158 with 219 franchises nationwide.