Alpha School’s Ritzy New York City Campus Costs $65,000 a Year—but Isn’t Actually a School
Key takeaways
- This school year, more than a dozen families have been sending their children to the sixth and seventh floors of the skyscraper at 180 Maiden Lane.
- Except the Maiden Lane campus isn’t really a school.
- Though the company’s marketing materials didn’t explicitly mention it, parents who enrolled their kids at the Maiden Lane campus would be required to file formal documentation signing up as homeschoolers.
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
ILLUSTRATION: ELENA LACEY; GETTY IMAGESComment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story In the fall of 2025, top executives from Alpha School gathered a group of wealthy New York City parents at a series of information sessions in Lower Manhattan to pitch them on the company’s new campus. The events, some of which were hosted by Alpha cofounder Mac Kenzie Price and its billionaire principal, Joe Liemandt, were designed to show how Alpha was “redefining school” through AI-powered learning models. The goal: persuade families to ditch the city’s traditional education system and join what Alpha initially called “the most forward-thinking private school in New York.”
The pitch seems to have worked. This school year, more than a dozen families have been sending their children to the sixth and seventh floors of the skyscraper at 180 Maiden Lane. According to the current Alpha New York web page, the “school day” runs from 8:15 am to 4:00 pm, and the stated “tuition” is $65,000 a year. (Founding families received a discount.) As Price told the Free Press in May, “Alpha is a product as a school that is catering to a certain demographic,” and “it is a premium, expensive private school.”
Except the Maiden Lane campus isn’t really a school. Late last summer, months before many of the info sessions, the New York State Education Department declined to approve Alpha’s request to incorporate as an independent school, according to a previously unreported copy of the decision obtained by WIRED. “Instruction as proposed is primarily online, with an AI-based platform called 2 Hour Learning™ that delivers instruction in core academic subjects with little to no supervision or competent teacher delivering such instruction,” the department’s office of counsel wrote. “Generally, [the NYSED] does not recognize online schools as proposed.”