Course Hero Review – Scam or Legit? Exposed!

Are you looking for a Course Hero review? But you may wonder if it is a scam.

Course Hero could be the perfect way to make money online while improving people’s lives. But is it really true? There are claims that they take advantage of students and teachers.

This Course Hero review explains who Course Hero is and what they do so you can decide if you want to sign up.

As a disclaimer, I’m not affiliated with Course Hero. It means I’m not paid to write this review. So you can rest assured that you will get an honest and unbiased review from me.

At the end of this review, I’ll also tell you the best alternative to Course Hero that has enabled me to make a full-time passive income online.

What Is Course Hero?

Both students and teachers can benefit from Course Hero, which provides instant access to a library of more than one million special reading materials.

The company has been around since 2006 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California, where it offers three different ways to make money online.

• Uploading Documents
• Referring Friends
• Tutoring

Course Hero is an online platform that compensates its users for submitting learning content such as study guides, flashcards, quizzes, class notes, and practice exams, similar to StudySoup.

When you refer your friends, you get a cut of what your friends submit.

Course Hero tutoring is not like other online tutoring websites. Course Hero tutors spend their time in a Q&A forum rather than a traditional online classroom. It’s a great way to help others if you do not like the live videos from companies like Tutor.com or Chegg, where you can earn from home as a tutor.

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Is Course Hero a Scam or Legit?

First of all, you can be sure that Course Hero is not one of those websites that pretend to be reputable in order to steal your money.

Second, although there are several important objections and allegations that Course Hero is a scam. Course Hero has been around for over a decade and has become a major player in online education.

A reviewer calls Course Hero (not to be confused with Commission Hero) a scam, but all of his complaints are about money. If this is how we judge whether something is fraudulent or not, almost every company out there would be scrutinized.

In my opinion, it is not fraud.

Complaints have been made that Course Hero hires teachers but then fires them without paying them.

That’s a pretty serious allegation, but other people have reported the same fraud in separate complaints.

To reiterate: I find it pretty unlikely that a company has been regularly and successfully defrauding customers since 2006 and still exists today to give an interview. I have no way of confirming the allegations.

Recommendation: Here’s The Best Alternative

Is Course Hero Cheating?

The allegation that Course Hero promotes dishonesty is unrelated to the above allegations of fraud.

Most schools have an honor code that prohibits the use of “unauthorized” aids on tests and other assignments.

From this, one might conclude that the entire Internet encourages dishonest behavior (depending on how one defines cheating).

In my opinion, content mastery is the ultimate goal, and tools like Course Hero can help with that. If Course Hero or other sites like it disappeared tomorrow, the students who rely on them to cheat would find another way to do it.

How Does Course Hero Work?

The time to sign up (for tutoring) ranges from a few days to a few weeks, although it seems simple (often depending on the number of courses you choose to tutor).

Create an account and fill out the application to be contacted by Course Hero for a phone interview. If you get the job, you’ll need to attend a one-day training session.

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Course Hero Requirements

There are no formal requirements to become a tutor; however, you must demonstrate a high level of expertise in the topics you plan to cover.

You will need a computer and internet access if you want to earn money online; a scanner or cell phone with a good camera is also very useful if you want to upload study guides, class notes, etc.

CamScanner is an app I use on my Android phone. It is easy to use and effective for light tasks. It’s good for scanning a few dozen pages, but I would not recommend it for hundreds.

Course Hero Tutor Application Process

The entire process of signing up as a tutor with Course Hero takes only about 40 minutes and consists of three steps:

1. Create a Course Hero tutoring account.
2. Specify basic skills and tutoring topics 3. Upload your photo ID and academic qualifications.

If you’re interested in becoming a tutor, you can sign up for a Course Hero account using your email address, Facebook or Google.

After registering, please provide the following information:

1. Basic information:
   1. First name
   2. Last name
   3. What country do you live in?
   4. Are you above the age of 13?
   5. What is your phone number? (optional)
2. Background and expertise:
   1. What is the highest educational qualification you have obtained?
   2. What is your professional background?
   3. Have you ever tutored before?
   4. Do you tutor on other online platforms?
   5. If you answered “Yes” above, what other platform(s) do you tutor for?
3. Additional information:
   1. How did you find out about Course Hero?
   2. If you have a referral code, enter it here.
4. Select subjects (up to 20)
5. Test your knowledge (for certain subjects)
6. Provide credentials
   1. Please scan and upload a copy of your official photo to ID.
   2. The recommended form of proof is a true university or university transcript, however, a diploma, grade sheet, grade endorsement, credit sheet, passing grade, provisional transcript, and online transcript or grade report (with full name and full web address) may also suffice
   3. Submit a photo of yourself holding your state photo ID close to your face.

Your status as a Course Hero Tutor will be determined within 7 days and you will be notified by email.

Recommendation: Here’s The Best Alternative

Are Sites Like Scribd And Quizlet Similar To Course Hero?

Both yes and no can be said. Despite their similarities, the extent to which they share and use content is different. Platforms such as Quizlet allow users to share learning materials such as flashcards, guides, and memory games. Quizlet and Course Hero each have their own strengths, and neither is a substitute for the other.

Quizlet provides learning activities related to material covered in a particular course, but does not shop written materials such as essays or class notes.

Scribd, on the other hand, is primarily an online document sharing service that uses a locking mechanism. However, it was not created with the intention of storing scholastic materials.

If your PDF, eBook, or other work meets the criteria of the review process, you will receive a free unlock. This creates a problem with the quality of the information, as there will be helpful learning tips as well as completely unrelated material.

For example, Scribd unlocks you for free if you insert any words into a work, regardless of whether those words make sense or are useful to others.

How Much Does Course Hero Cost?

Membership costs for students who regularly purchase academic materials range from $10 to $40 per month, semi-annually, or annually (but you can use the flashcards for free).

Uploading documents and offering tutoring services are free, so there’s no excuse not to join if you want to earn some extra cash.

How Much Does Course Hero Pay?

To be honest, this is not one of the few areas where Course Hero lets you down. I had to dig deep to get data on salaries, and I would not put too much stock in what I found.

One source I found said that the going rate for uploading documents is between $0.25 and $0.75.

As a tutor, you can earn between $1.00 and $5.00 per question, depending on the topic and difficulty level. When you unpack a question, you will usually find several others in it that also need to be explained before you get to the main question.

The number of questions you’ll have access to depends on the number of topics you have been given access to and your ability to answer them quickly and accurately.

One problem with online work is not the pay per job, but rather the unreliability of the work itself. However, if you supplement your Course Hero income with other online opportunities, you will never be short of cash.

Starting a part-time online business is ideal if you want a full-time income but are not sure what career path you want to take, or if you want to become an entrepreneur.

Recommendation: Here’s The Best Alternative

Course Hero Schedule

One of the disadvantages of online one-on-one tutoring is that your schedule must accommodate the times when your students are active on the platform.

Course Hero’s question and answer format is more open. You can access the site whenever you want and choose the questions you want to answer. The same goes for transferring files.

Course Hero Reviews and Complaints

There is no way to present this situation positively. Undoubtedly, the negative Course Hero evaluations outweigh the positive ones.

Among the most frequently expressed concerns are,

• The salary is really bad.
• If a student or client complains, Course Hero will immediately suspend your account.
• The accusations of tutoring fraud last until the payment is made (it takes 14 days for the money to be transferred), and then you are blocked without explanation.

To rebut such accusations, it should be noted that Course Hero is benefited, among other things, by always paying its contributors on time. They’ve also persevered for decades, which wouldn’t be the case if teachers weren’t paid.

It’s easy to generalize from a series of complaints, but it’s not fair to treat every complaint or allegation as anything other than an individual case. We may not be told the whole truth.

Pros of Course Hero

• I personally like the Q&A tutoring format because it allows me more flexibility in scheduling.
• It is completely free to sign up.
• There are numerous ways to earn money.

Cons of Course Hero

• It would be desirable if the positive and negative ratings were more evenly distributed.
• Pay is low.
• People still trade hours for money. There is no prospect of passive income here.

Course Hero Review: Final Verdict

There is room for improvement in Course Hero. It is risk-free to try them out because there is no registration fee.

However, they are not the only way to get something for nothing. There are countless remote employment opportunities that you could enjoy more. It’s possible that as a tutor or freelancer working from home, you could benefit from working with multiple clients.

As mentioned earlier, you can earn extra money by taking surveys on sites like surveyjunkie.com and inboxdollars.com, or you can let your inner entrepreneurial spirit run wild by starting an online business.

Let me tell you the best way to make money online in the next section.

Recommendation: Here’s The Best Alternative

Best Alternative of Course Hero to Make Passive Income

If you want to make a stable and secure stream of passive income, I would suggest you start an affiliate marketing business online.

Affiliate Marketing is perfect for anyone who is new to online business. 

In fact, of all the online business models I’ve tried, affiliate marketing is the easiest and most rewarding so far.  

In affiliate marketing, you can actually run your business almost with zero cost and achieve a steady and sustainable passive income to pay for your bills. You don’t need any initial capital and can even do it as a side hustle.

And if you really want to learn affiliate marketing and build a business from scratch, I’d recommend you to get started with the most reputable platform for affiliate marketing: Wealthy Affiliate.

Wealthy Affiliate is an all-in-one platform for building your affiliate marketing business from scratch. It offers you a free account (including a free website) with comprehensive training on SEO (free traffic methods), which enables you to get started with affiliate marketing right away without paying a penny.

But How Much Can You Earn with Wealthy Affiliate?

A 21-year old student from Wealthy Affiliate was able to earn $7,395 in just 1 week, which means he made more than $1k a day…all while using free traffic methods.

Wealthy Affiliate has existed for 15 years and there are many success stories in the past decade.

To give you more examples, here are some of the other inspiring success stories of Wealthy Affiliate members.

Where to Join Wealthy Affiliate?

Wealthy Affiliate has a very simple pricing scheme. It has free and premium membership.

If you want to feel about Wealthy Affiliate, you can sign up for the free starter membership here (no credit card required). You can select to be a free member with no time limit.

And as a starter member, you can get instant access to the community, live chat, over 500 training modules, 2 classrooms, networking, commenting, 1 free website, access to the keyword tool.

You can enjoy all these values without paying a penny. 

So I strongly recommend you to register a free account and see it yourself.

Recommendation: Here’s The Best Alternative