Wealthy Parents Are Sending Their Kids to $75,000 AI Kindergartens

Wealthy American families are paying up to $75,000 a year to hand their children’s education to AI-tutored private schools whose own founders call the experiment a beta test. The schools market personalized chatbots and “2-Hour Learning” as a fix for what Silicon Valley considers broken classrooms. Most of the country, polling shows, doesn’t trust AI to make fair, unbiased decisions for adults.

Two networks are doing most of the recruiting. Alpha School, the Austin-born chain co-founded by MacKenzie Price and fronted by Trilogy Software founder Joe Liemandt, runs campus-based programs from kindergarten through high school at select locations. Forge Prep, founded by Anand Sanwal in New Jersey, serves grades 5 through 12. Both sell the same pitch: AI tutors in the morning, project-based life-skills workshops in the afternoon. Both keep their numbers private. Neither releases independently audited performance data, so the children enrolled in them are effectively the test.

The $40,000 to $75,000 Bet on an AI-Led Classroom

Tuition at Alpha School varies by campus, and the bill can be steep. Families pay between $40,000 and $75,000 a year depending on the location, per the National Education Policy Center’s NEPC’s breakdown of Alpha School’s pricing. The top of that range sits above what most U.S. households earn in a year before taxes.

Silicon Valley has led the adoption. Venture capitalist Shaun Johnson, who lives in San Francisco, told the Wall Street Journal he plans to send his son to Alpha’s kindergarten program at the $75,000-a-year rate. His reason, in his own words: “We recognize that education is likely broken the way it is and there’s going to be entrepreneurs that try to fix it… You want someone to be able to think on their feet and navigate the world, not necessarily a recitation of facts in a particular discipline.” The quote, which The Verge carried in its report on Silicon Valley AI-school adopters, frames schools that use AI tutors as a noble disruption rather than a privatization of an education.

Alpha School and Forge Prep at a glance

Attribute	Alpha School	Forge Prep
Tuition range	$40,000 to $75,000 per year by campus	Tens of thousands of dollars per year
Grades served	PreK through 12 (varies by campus)	5th through 12th
Classroom model	AI tutors for core academics in roughly two hours; afternoon life-skills workshops	Project-based learning with AI tutors
Independent performance data	Internal NWEA MAP analysis; Pennsylvania rejected a charter proposal citing the data	Not publicly reported
Adults in the room	Called “Guides”; roughly one-third have formal teaching credentials	Guides drawn from former classroom teachers
Lead founder	MacKenzie Price (co-founder); Joe Liemandt (principal)	Anand Sanwal

Who Builds and Runs These AI-Led Schools

Alpha School’s public face is MacKenzie Price, a Stanford-trained co-founder with a large Instagram following and a steady stream of videos casting public schools as failed. The principal is Joe Liemandt, the founder of Trilogy Software who shifted resources toward the AI-school model after the 2022 generative-AI boom. Together they run a network whose admissions pitch leans on personal AI tutors, life-skills workshops, and a daily schedule that finishes core academics by lunch.

Inside the classroom, the adults working with children are called “Guides,” not teachers. Only one-third of Alpha’s Guides hold formal teaching credentials, according to NEPC’s Alpha School’s FAQ page on its Guides program. They earn six-figure salaries, well above the $40,000 to $50,000 starting pay in public schools, and the FAQ frames their job as coaching and motivation rather than instruction.

Forge Prep runs a similar pitch from a different playbook. Founder Anand Sanwal built a career in market-intelligence software before turning to K-12, and he frames Forge as a phone-free program run by former classroom teachers. The school’s admissions materials lean on entrepreneurship and project work rather than the “2-Hour Learning” branding Alpha has made its signature. Both networks share the same bet: that AI tutors can replace much of what a teacher does in the morning, leaving the rest of the day free for life skills.

Performance Claims the Schools Won’t Let Outside Auditors Verify

Alpha School’s marketing claims students score in the top 1 to 2 percent nationally on the NWEA MAP assessment, a computerized adaptive test the school itself administers. The school’s own Alpha School FAQ on MAP Growth results describes results that “consistently” hit that band and says students progress “twice as fast as the national average.”

The numbers are not externally audited. NEPC, in its NEPC’s analysis of Alpha’s data methodology, flagged the results as “based entirely on an internal analysis of NWEA MAP test data” and criticized the use of “inflated MAP growth ratios” and “misused medians.” The same performance claims led the State of Pennsylvania to reject Alpha’s proposal to open a charter school.

If learning could truly be accelerated at the rates claimed by Alpha schools, then students would finish a complete K-12 education by the second year of elementary school. Real learning is slow, effortful, and deliberate.

The quote comes from Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, an educational neuroscientist and author of “The Digital Delusion,” in comments to NEPC. Forge Prep’s results are an even simpler story: the school does not publish them. The Verge’s report on Forge Prep’s missing performance metrics notes that there is no public evidence the AI-guided model is improving educational outcomes at all.

The Subjects Schools Are Quietly Cutting

Alpha School co-founder MacKenzie Price has said she plans to keep “hot-button social issues” out of the classroom. In the current political climate, that phrase can quietly cover women’s rights, American history of slavery, and the country’s immigrant past, the NEPC’s profile of Price’s education pitch notes. The same curriculum choice matters more as students age up: in some locations, Alpha School goes through high school, and the choices made in a kindergarten homeroom echo through to graduation.

Price has built a substantial audience for that message.

Her Instagram following stands at roughly 1.2 million, and her posts routinely frame traditional public schools as a problem worth escaping. NEPC describes the social-media presence as “fear-mongering” about public education while positioning Alpha as the cure. The combination, a private AI tutor and a curated curriculum, lets Alpha’s enrolled families buy a version of K-12 that other American students cannot.

Most Americans Already Distrust AI to Make Big Decisions

The parents in line for these classrooms are a small minority. A 2025 Gallup study on AI attitudes, published with the Special Competitive Studies Project, found that only 2 percent of U.S. adults “fully” trust AI’s capability to make fair and unbiased decisions. Another 29 percent said they trust it “somewhat.” Six in 10 Americans distrust AI either somewhat or fully.

The same study, captured in the Gallup poll on American AI attitudes, found broad appetite for rules and outside testing. The numbers that frame the climate an Alpha or Forge parent is sending their child into:

• 2 percent of U.S. adults fully trust AI for fair, unbiased decisions.
• Six in 10 Americans distrust AI either somewhat or fully.
• 80 percent want the government to maintain rules for AI safety and data security.
• 72 percent want independent experts to test AI systems before release.
• 97 percent say AI should be subject to rules and regulations.

Trust rises among heavy AI users, and on a different track: among Americans willing to slow development for stronger rules, 30 percent trust AI either somewhat or fully, the Gallup release states. Among those who want AI capabilities developed as quickly as possible, that share climbs to 56 percent. The parents sending checks to Alpha or Forge sit firmly in the second group.

The Classroom Surveillance the Children Don’t See

Behind the chatbot is a privacy policy that goes well beyond a school camera in a hallway. NEPC’s NEPC’s read of Alpha School’s privacy policy documented the data the school reserves the right to collect on its K-12 students:

• Continuous webcam video, used to “identify eye contact and body language to help detect engagement and focus issues”
• Screenshots and screen recordings “monitored 24×7”
• Keystroke and mouse activity, to flag when a student is idle
• Audio and video from group, one-on-one, and online meeting sessions
• Biometric data and identifiers
• Geolocation
• Productivity data and any purchase history tied to rewards a student redeems

The policy explicitly limits what parents can opt out of. Even where a parent turns off data collection on one device, the school states, the student may still be recorded on another device, “in particular while at school.” The adults collecting this data are not the ones most affected by it. The children are.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does Alpha School charge for tuition?

Tuition varies by Alpha School campus, with families paying between $40,000 and $75,000 a year, according to the National Education Policy Center. Price is set by location and program and is not publicly itemized.

Does Forge Prep publish student performance data?

Forge Prep does not publicly release student test scores or other performance metrics, per The Verge. The school has declined to share results comparable to public-school report cards.

Who founded Alpha School?

MacKenzie Price is co-founder of Alpha School, and Joe Liemandt, the founder of Trilogy Software, serves as the school’s principal, according to the National Education Policy Center and Alpha School’s own website.

What does the “2-Hour Learning” model involve?

Alpha School students complete core academic work using AI-driven tutors in roughly two hours a day, then spend their afternoons on life-skills workshops and enrichment activities, per Alpha School’s FAQ.

What data does Alpha School collect on students?

Alpha School’s privacy policy allows the school to collect continuous webcam video, screenshots monitored around the clock, keystroke and mouse activity, biometric identifiers, geolocation, and audio and video recordings of online sessions, according to the National Education Policy Center.