CLAYTON, Mo. (KMOX) — A local education start-up is offering free college testing prep, prompted by the college admissions cheating scandal.
Celebrities including Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin are accused of circumventing the typical admissions process. Huffman pled guilty to paying to rig a test score and will serve a 14-day prison sentence, 250 hours of community service, and one year of supervised release. Loughlin is fighting charges she bribed her daughter's way onto a sports team.
The SAT and ACT prep course used to cost nearly $800. Now, it's free.
"You can actually now get a live online course, 25 hours of live instruction, mobile apps, diagnostic test, 650-page test prep book for free," Cohn said.
Turns out, a lot of people prefer online to in-person instruction
"We can actually pair you with an instructor who's best suited for your needs, so we can find the best person within 5,000 miles for you as opposed to the person who happens to live a couple miles down the street," he described. "So you actually can get a better-suited instructor with better expertise for your particular area."
Varsity Tutors' online courses, not all of which are free, cover subjects from learning Swahili to music to structural engineering.
"Over the course of the last year we've added more than 1,000 new subjects to the platform," Cohn said.
Last year, KMOX News reported on Varsity Tutors raising $50 million in new investment and expanding its "real-time matching" platform.