Our Mission:

The lack of calculus courses in U.S. high schools, particularly in lower-resourced regions, represents a significant educational disparity. According to the 2018 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education, nearly half of high schools in the U.S. don’t offer AP calculus. Calculus is a mandatory course for most university STEM programs across the US, including MIT, and its absence effectively blocks these students’ access to higher education and career opportunities in STEM fields.

Our mission is to expand access to calculus education in lower-resourced high schools across the country by empowering educators and high school learners with scalable, cost-effective support. This will be accomplished by leveraging a combination of the passion and expertise of MIT students and alumni as mentors, the power of AI tutors to provide 24/7 support, and MIT’s experience in scaling educational efforts to deploy this at scale. We envision the program becoming a year-round effort, which involves MIT-supported summer kickoff “bootcamps” to get students and teachers ready for the year through MIT students on site, combined with academic year tutoring and mentoring from MIT students and alumni with integrated technology support. 

Pilot Fall Program

In order to reach this expansive goal, we have a plan to set up pilot programs across the country this fall. These programs will align trained MIT students and alumni with sites where they will support introductory high school calculus courses through tutoring and mentoring. MIT students and alumni will help high school learners in these classes succeed via remote tutoring and, when appropriate, AI tutors will be made available to assist with student learning. The goal is to support the expansion of high school calculus access across the United States, particularly in communities that have low calculus enrollment, completion, and passing of the AP exam. We will work with teachers in each school to make sure our support is connected with their curriculum and classroom and deeply connect the student tutors with the classroom community.

Future Vision

Our long term goal is to provide a year-round support system that transforms the teaching of calculus—making it more engaging, effective, and able to attract and retain a wide range of students. Beginning in summer 2026, we will work with sites to create a 3-week summer program taught by a local teacher that will provide a headstart for students in the fall. These programs will provide payment for local, participating teachers as well as support for students who may need to substitute summer employment to participate in the program.

What to Expect for Fall 2025 Pilot Program

We are currently looking for schools willing to host one of the pilot fall tutoring sites. MIT would provide vetted (and CORI checked) online MIT student and alumni mentors, a calculus tutoring curriculum, and make available AI tutors for the program. We would provide enough mentors so that each tutor will support 5-10 high school students, allowing for “office hour”-like periods where students can ask questions to an actual person each week. The mentors will be prepared with example activities, be able to provide homework help, and be trained in college preparation mentoring to support students who wish to pursue a college education. MIT would also have an introduction for teachers to help them make the best use of the online MIT tutors, and provide regular opportunities to check in with teachers to make sure the tutors are helpful. This would be provided to schools at no cost other than a commitment to working with the tutors. Schools will need to have ongoing calculus classes taught by qualified teachers, and access to computers with an internet connection for remote tutoring.  

Join Us

We invite schools to participate in this transformative pilot program. Together, we can bridge the gap in advanced calculus education and empower students from under-resourced communities to achieve their academic and career goals in STEM fields. During summer 2025 we’re looking for schools to commit to the academic year 2025-26 program. Again, there is no cost to schools other than working with the program.  

For more information or to express interest in participating, please contact: mitforamerica@mit.edu.