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Study shows AI is as good as human tutoring for GRE learning gains (arxiv.org)
6 points by cgn 8 days ago | hide | past | pdf | 1 comment on HN

In plain words: A public platform tests whether AI tutors actually teach, by tracking thousands of students working through GRE questions with an AI tutor, a human tutor, or none. AI tutoring matched expert human tutors' learning gains while costing 918 times less per point gained.

Abstract · StudentBench: AI and human tutoring yield equivalent GRE learning gains

Artificial intelligence offers an unprecedented opportunity to augment human capabilities, yet progress at the frontier has focused primarily on advancing model capabilities. We introduce StudentBench, a suite of AI teaching evaluations and a public platform that enables large-scale data collection with over 175,000 student-AI messages to study whether large language models (LLMs) produce learning gains equivalent to human tutoring. Using StudentBench, we measured learning gains on Quantitative and Verbal GRE questions across 2,383 human participants receiving AI tutoring, human tutoring, or no tutoring. We establish that AI tutoring is statistically equivalent to expert human tutoring for GRE learning gains (p = .015), and in five of the seven GRE domains, the best performing AI tutor surpassed the human tutor, on average. In a second study, expert human tutors compared LLM-generated lesson plans and practice problems through 2,028 pairwise rubric evaluations. Together, the two studies clearly separate AI tutors across: (1) lesson planning, (2) practice-problem creation, (3) conversational pedagogy, (4) cost, and (5) engagement. Surprisingly, one AI tutor achieved learning gains equivalent to human tutoring (p = .044) at 918 times lower cost (USD 0.0052 for AI versus USD 4.81 for human, per percentage point gained). For Quantitative GRE sessions, faster AI replies correlated with more student messages, more messages with more correct practice, and more correct practice with larger learning gains (all p < .002). To support future research, we open-source the de-identified data collected in our studies.

Curtis Northcutt, Inaara Hasmani, Kevin Feng, Trevor Khangi, Andreas Plesner, Jonas Mueller
arXiv:2609.28470 · cs.AI, cs.CY · submitted Sep 23, 2026 · updated Sep 30, 2026
abstract · pdf · html · 47 pages, including references and appendices. Data: https://huggingface.co/datasets/handshake-ai-research/studentbench Code: https://github.com/Handshake-AI-Research/studentbench

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Also discussed: Sep 2026 (5 points, 1 comment)

Author of the paper here. We found that AI is as good as expert human tutors for immediate GRE learning gains (p=.015, n=2,383 students).

One hour with an expert GRE tutor: $75. One equivalent hour with an AI tutor: 7 cents. 918x cheaper per point of learning, with equivalent learning (p=.044).

In 5 of 7 GRE topics, the top AI tutor beat the expert human tutors on average.

Motivation is that RSI and most AI research is focused on machines improving machines. We created this suite of benchmarks and evaluations to shift investment to focus on machines improving humans. We were also just genuinely curious how much AI could improve a human's learning gain on real actual standardized exams.

All data from students and teachers is open-sourced to advance research in augmenting human capabilities with AI.

Data: https://huggingface.co/datasets/handshake-ai-research/studen... Code: https://github.com/Handshake-AI-Research/studentbench Try it: https://studentbench.org Video: https://x.com/cgnorthcutt/status/2103171858057277532/video/1

Happy to answer questions.