Business is booming for those involved in the business of helping to prepare students to take examinations, primarily standardized tests ranging from college entrance exams to the tests given children to select for admittance to private kindergarten. The graph provides employment figures nationally from 1998 through 2011 for all firms involved with exam preparation and tutoring. The rate of employment growth in this area has been very strong. From 1998 to 2011 it nearly quadrupled, growing 391%. This was the standout industry within the overall educational service sector, which as a whole saw employment grow 46% over the period. The red line in the graph shows overall sector employment.

The reason we have used employment data to show the growth of this industry is because data on revenues is not plentiful. Growth in revenue for the industry between 1997 and 2007, two Economic Census years, was 331%. Over that same period, employment grew 241%. It is reasonable to assume that between 2007 and 2011, revenue in the industry also kept pace with employment growth, suggesting that this is an industry that was not strongly impacted by the recession of 2007–2009.

Today’s market size is the total value of revenues earned by Exam Preparation and Tutoring businesses in the United States in 1997 and 2007. For those familiar with the NAICS coding system, this industry is NAICS 611691.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 1997 and 2007
Market size: $815 million and $3.5 billion respectively
Sources: (1) “Educational Services: Geographical Area Series: Comparative Statistics for the United States (2002 NAICS basis): 2007 and 2002,” 2007 Economic Census, U.S. Census Bureau, available online here. (2) Arsen J. Darnay, editor, Information, Finance, & Services USA, 2001, page 549, Gale Group. (3) “2010 County Business Patterns (NAICS),” U.S. Census Bureau, available online here.
Original source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census
Posted on March 19, 2014