In the fall of 2025, Alpha School held information sessions for wealthy New York City parents to promote its new campus as a revolutionary private school. The goal was to convince families to switch from traditional education to Alpha’s AI-powered learning model. The school day runs from 8:15 am to 4:00 pm, with tuition at $65,000 per year. Founding families received discounts. According to Alpha cofounder MacKenzie Price, the school is a premium, expensive private school catering to a specific demographic.
The campus at 180 Maiden Lane, however, is not officially recognized as a school. Late last summer, the New York State Education Department denied Alpha’s request to incorporate as an independent school. The department criticized the proposed AI-based platform, 2 Hour Learning™, for lacking supervision and competent instruction. The decision was previously unreported. About a week later, Alpha rebranded the campus as the Alpha Anywhere Center, promoting its homeschooling products. Parents who enrolled their children would be required to file as homeschoolers.
Alpha has been expanding rapidly, opening campuses in major US cities. The company claims its model enables students to learn twice as much in two hours as traditional schools do in a day. However, sources involved in building Alpha campuses expressed concerns about the lack of transparency with parents. Some parents reported their children receiving rewards for academic performance, while others said their kids were barred from certain privileges if they failed to meet learning goals.
Source: wired
