Avocational exemption

Definition

The reason nobody licenses a tutoring business, and the line it must not cross.

Why It Matters

California's private postsecondary act reaches institutions that charge for education, and a tutoring center escapes it three separate ways: it may offer solely avocational or recreational programs, it may be test preparation for a college admissions examination, or it may charge two thousand five hundred dollars or less in total. A short course of thirty-two hours or fewer is not an educational program at all. The consequence for a buyer is that the parents have no statutory cancellation right, so whatever refund policy the seller has written is the whole of it. A center that grows past the charge ceiling and stops being avocational acquires an approval requirement, and a change of ownership then needs prior authorization.