I'm sorry but this thread is ridiculous. In a normal well payed job, e.g. bar job, or supermarket an adult over 18 earns approximately $20 an hour. These people are put on for at least 4 hours shifts, and so, by the end of it, are making at LEAST $80.
Maths tutoring is expensive for the following reasons:
1. It's impossible to string more than 3 hours together of tutoring sessions - because everyone finishes school at 4ish and no one wants tutoring after 8ish, these hours are the only chance tutors get to deliver a service. ESPECIALLY if the tutor is travelling to the house of the person. This excludes weekends, however, it's hard to find students who want tutoring on their days off. Furthermore, most tutors are university students, and this limits their schedules even further.
2. Tutoring requires an indepth knowledge of the subject - you simply can't tutor if you have a shallow knowledge of the material you're teaching. Think about it, if you hire an electrician or a computer technician for the hour, you really think you're going to be paying them less than $40?
3. Tutors have to organise their own schedules and their own materials - if someone cancels, there's not much you can do. A casual, part-time or full-time job at any institution guarantees you a shift every time you need to work. Tutoring doesn't.
In sum, $35-$40 is not ridiculous, and is in fact, very reasonable given the amount of knowledge and organisation needed, and the limited hours possible. I'm not calling the OP an idiot, but he's obviously never tutored in his entire life.
