College students launch free online tutoring service to help stressed parents during pandemic

A woman receives virtual tutoring. — (Image credit: iStock)

Friends Angela Sun, Madeleine Zheng, and Mae Zhang want to make things easier on parents who are trying to juggle work and helping their kids with school, so they launched a free virtual tutoring service that provides assistance with everything from biology to economics.

Sun, Zheng, and Zhang are graduates of University High School in Tucson. They started Cov Tutors in July, and when they opened registration, five students signed up. "The very next day, numbers doubled," Sun, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, told KOLD. They offer one-on-one Zoom sessions, with each student receiving one to two hours of tutoring, one to three times a week.

The tutors help with homework and give lectures, so it feels like they are in "a classroom setting," Sun said. Some students have signed up to prepare for upcoming courses, while others need a refresher in certain subjects. Zheng, a student at Arizona State University, told KOLD that by offering tutoring, it "takes that burden away from the parent, especially because they have to work and right now it's kind of a financially stressful time as well."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.