Manuscript received October 6 2026; accepted November 9, 2026; November 12, 2026.

Abstract—Private tutoring has been the fastest-growing component of household education spending in China and the one with the widest urban-rural gap. In July 2021 the central government introduced the “Double Reduction” policy, which imposed strict controls on academic tutoring for students in compulsory education. This study divides household education expenditure into academic tutoring, non-academic tutoring, and school-based after-school services. It draws on published results from four waves of a national household survey on education finance conducted between 2017 and 2023, on policy documents, and on empirical studies published since 2021 to examine changes in the level, composition, and urban-rural distribution of spending. Participation in academic tutoring fell from 36.1% to 13.5%, but total household education spending did not decline, and the combined share of tutoring in household education spending remained broadly stable. Spending shifted from academic to non-academic tutoring and from private providers to school-based services. Before the policy, average academic tutoring spending per urban student was about 7.5 times that per rural student, so the direct effects of the policy were concentrated in cities. The relative urban-rural gap in per-student spending appears to have narrowed, but the even larger gap in non-academic tutoring may become a new form of inequality. The study recommends improving after-school services in rural schools, regulating non-academic tutoring, and reforming student assessment.