Wealthy American families are ditching regular schools, paying $75,000 a year to send their kids to AI private schools
- Some wealthy American families are moving their kids from traditional schools to "AI private schools" like Alpha School, which replace regular classroom teaching with AI tutors.
- Alpha School's model is 2 hours of AI tutoring a day plus project-based workshops, with tuition up to $75,000 a year. It added 8 campuses in 2025 and plans to open nearly 24 more in fall 2026.
- Two studies — one covering over 26,000 students in China, and one from UC Berkeley — show that using AI for homework raises grades, but exam scores drop by up to 24%, and 81% of long-term users end up outsourcing their thinking entirely to AI.
- Traditional schools currently have no answer for teaching kids to "use AI well" instead of "letting AI think for them" — and that's exactly the gap Alpha School is targeting.
- Only a handful of families can afford $75,000 a year in tuition. Put that next to the 75 new multimillionaires created by a single internal OpenAI stock sale, and the widening wealth gap in the AI era comes into sharper focus.
Wealthy families are opting out of regular schools
Wealthy Americans are preparing their kids for the AI era, and some families are abandoning traditional schools for "AI private schools" like Alpha School. The Wall Street Journal recently reported on this trend.
Why it matters: Alpha School was founded 12 years ago, and in 2025 alone it added 8 campuses. For fall 2026 it plans to open nearly 24 more, in locations including San Francisco, New York, Palo Alto, and Malibu. That pace of expansion shows "AI private schools" have gone from a fringe experiment to a business operating at scale.
What a day at an AI private school looks like
Take Alpha School, founded twelve years ago in Austin, Texas. Its biggest difference from a regular school is how the day is structured. Regular schools run a fixed schedule, with the whole class moving at the same pace. Alpha splits the day into two very different halves.
~2 hrs
The key is that AI constantly watches each student's state and adjusts difficulty on the fly — students advance to the next concept only once they've mastered the current one, so pace varies student to student. This is called a competency-based curriculum: progress isn't paced by grade level or class hours, but by whether you've actually learned the material. Teachers step down from the podium and are now called "guides" — according to spokesperson Anna Davlantes, each on-campus guide earns a six-figure salary. The full package: up to $75,000 a year.
How fast has it grown in two years
This isn't one school tinkering at the margins. Starting from a single location in Austin, the numbers alone show how fast Alpha School has spread over the past two years.
Who's footing the bill, and why
Who's actually paying $75,000? According to a spokesperson, New York's Alpha families are mostly in finance or run their own companies, while Bay Area families mostly come from tech. Billionaire Bill Ackman is also reportedly a vocal fan of the school.
We realized that education, as it currently stands, is likely broken, and entrepreneurs will step up to try to fix it.
Why traditional schools can't keep up with AI
Why are these parents willing to bypass traditional schools? Two recent studies expose a soft spot in traditional education when it comes to AI: homework done with AI looks fast and polished, but it falls apart the moment there's an exam.
Data from a Chinese study covering over 26,000 students. Homework scores went up, but real exams dragged scores down — this is what's known as the "hidden cost of AI learning."
A separate study from UC Berkeley reached a similar conclusion: AI pushed grades up, but students didn't actually learn the material.
Traditional schools have almost no answer for how to help students use AI to learn better, rather than let it take over their thinking entirely. That gap is exactly what schools like Alpha are targeting — they want to deliberately weave AI into the learning process instead of leaving students to figure it out on their own.
At $75,000 a year, only some families can afford it
But a $75,000-a-year price tag means only a small slice of families can afford it. Put that tuition in the context of the AI era's broader wealth map, and the gap comes into sharper focus.
But AI itself may be the greatest equalizer
That said, outside formal education, AI may well be the most democratizing learning tool in years. As long as you have internet access, anyone can have a private tutor: patient, adapting to each person's needs, available 24 hours a day, free or nearly free.
But using it well requires exactly the skills schools were supposed to teach in the first place. What actually widens the gap is who gets taught how to use it.
These parents' argument is: AI will reshape the economy, and old teaching methods can't keep up. The Wall Street Journal, via The Decoder
Education in the AI era is forking: wealthy families are paying for AI tutors, regular schools still haven't learned to use AI
Some wealthy American families are ditching regular schools and paying $75,000 a year to send their kids to "AI private schools" — one page on what they're buying, and the gap behind it.
↓ Read the whole thing in one page · one figure animates
"AI private schools" are a new category: no uniform class schedule, an AI tutor customizing pace for each child, and teachers who don't stand at the front — they're called "guides." The families paying are mostly in New York finance and Bay Area tech; billionaire Bill Ackman is also reportedly a fan. The flagship, Alpha School, is 12 years old — it added 8 campuses in 2025 alone and plans nearly 24 more for fall 2026, having grown from a fringe experiment into a business operating at scale.
✘ But they can't teach students to "use AI to learn better" instead of "let AI think for them"
Letting students use AI for homework unsupervised makes homework fast and polished, but it falls apart at exam time — and that gap is exactly the business AI private schools are targeting.
Alpha School splits the day into two halves. Two hours in the morning with an AI tutor — the AI tracks each child's engagement in real time and adjusts difficulty on the fly, moving to the next concept only once the current one is truly mastered. Afternoons are for projects and life skills, with teachers stepping back into a "guide" role. According to a school spokesperson, each on-campus guide earns a six-figure salary. The full package: up to $75,000 a year.
Falling behind or coasting — you just have to live with it
2h AI tutoring in the AM + project workshops in the PM
The real reason these parents are willing to pay big money to bypass regular schools is buried in two studies: letting regular-school students use AI unsupervised may actually make them learn worse.
Both use AI: at a regular school, a student uses it to do homework — homework looks great, but exams drop. AI private schools flip it — they pin AI down to the job of "making sure you actually learn." Below, a student named XiaoHu walks both paths side by side.
This AI private school costs up to $75,000 a year — a bar only a tiny sliver of families can clear. Put it in the context of the AI era's wealth map and the gap gets sharper: last fall, a single internal OpenAI stock sale created 75 new multimillionaires, each capped at cashing out $30 million.
just hand their
thinking to AI
- × Can't teach "using AI well"
- × Lets students outsource thinking
- × Homework's great, exams tank
double in two years
Palo Alto · Malibu
unlock the next
the podium — now
stands beside you as a "guide"
at the price tag
≈ 400 years of AI-private-school tuition