Saritha Rai from Bangalore in GlobalPost:
Six days a week in the wee hours of the morning, Saswati Patnaik logs into her home computer.
The homemaker — and tutor for a Bangalore company called TutorVista — rises early to help American high school students write English term papers, prepare S.A.T. essays or finish homework assignments.
Outsourcing, of course, started as a way for American companies to lower costs by shifting work to cheaper locations. After nearly two decades, that practice has become so mainstream that hundreds of U.S. businesses — from Wall Street banks to law firms, architects and others — routinely outsource to India.
But now a growing number of individual Americans are following in the footsteps of businesses — and outsourcing homework.
For $99 a month, American customers of TutorVista get unlimited coaching in English, math or science from Patnaik or one of her 1,500 fellow tutors. Similar personalized services in the United States charge about $40 an hour. More:
