Athrelon comments on Economy gossip open thread - Less Wrong
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If you're interested in travel & speak fluent English, I have heard that is it possible to make excellent money teaching English, even without any kind of credentials. I personally only tutor 1 child because it is all I have time for, but I make about 125 RMB per hour, which translates to about $20 US. While my pay is not great (for the US), I have heard that if you get a group of 8 or so kids together & teach them in bulk, you can make upwards of 800 RMB per hour (~$127 US). This would also be tax free. Not quite on par with the high-end college-educated call girl, but I'm guessing most of us aren't suited to be one of those.
I am not convinced that this is morally superior to selling opium. This depends critically on how much use the marginal student actually gets out of English.
Now SAT tutoring, that is certainly morally inferior to selling opium. (Inferior, not equal, for obvious utility reasons.)
...and how much utility people actually get out of opium.
One thing I can tell you is that if a child has a native English speaker teaching them, their English is pretty much guaranteed to be better than if they don't. At many schools, Chinese teachers who have never been outside of China will be the ones teaching the kids English -- their English is horrible & often they will be punishing the children for getting something "wrong" when they are more likely than not the ones mistaken.
Er, that seems pretty massive to me. Access to the English internet by itself seems worthwhile.