Mark Rober’s Netflix show ‘Schooled’ lands early 2027, and YouTube just gave him $2.5M

Mark Rober’s October has been a big one. The former NASA engineer turned YouTube science star detailed his upcoming Netflix series Schooled, scheduled for early 2027, and picked up a $2.5 million grant from YouTube and Google.org for his free classroom curriculum.

What Schooled is

At Bloomberg’s Screentime conference in Los Angeles on Oct 1, Rober explained the premise, per What’s on Netflix. It is an unscripted competition made with Jimmy Kimmel’s Kimmelot, built around a real school turned into an “engineering playground” with Rober as the principal.

Each episode puts contestants through a science or engineering challenge. Rober’s examples: trash-can rockets launched off the roof and trampolines in the hallways. The winner gets half a million dollars for college and an apprenticeship at CrunchLabs.

I started with just me and a tripod for 10 years… Here, I’d show up to set and there were around 300 people a day.— Mark Rober, at Bloomberg Screentime, via What’s on Netflix

Netflix, but still YouTube

Rober’s Netflix partnership began in August 2025. What’s on Netflix says his titles picked up 104.8 million viewing hours globally between 2025 and mid-2026. He stressed he isn’t leaving YouTube: “At my core, I am a YouTuber and always will be.”

He also said conversations with YouTube are ongoing, including about day-and-date releases (putting a show on both platforms at once), which he called “ongoing right now.”

The $2.5 million

On Oct 6, World Teachers’ Day, YouTube and Google.org said they would fund Class CrunchLabs, per Tubefilter. Rober announced the free curriculum last year and committed $55 million to it. It targets grades 3 through 8, in 34 languages, and YouTube said it would have more than 1,000 videos for the 2026-27 school year. The grant will help with translation, research and keeping it free.

The money model

Net Influencer reports, from Rober’s Bloomberg interview, that CrunchLabs spends about $500,000 on average per video and treats that as a break-even cost, since the videos promote the company’s science toys. Net Influencer says the company employs 200 people and has not needed outside funding since launching with Rober’s own $3 million. It also quotes Rober saying the curriculum will cost more than $60 million, up from the $55 million Tubefilter reported earlier.

What happens next

Schooled has no exact date yet. Until then, expect more Class CrunchLabs lessons and Rober’s next big YouTube build.