| Author(s): | Ware, M., and Patel, R. |
| Title: | Does more money matter? An introduction to the performance-based scholarship demonstration in California |
| Source: | http://www.mdrc.org/publications/619/policybrie... |
| Date: | 2012 |
| Organization: | MDRC |
| Short Description: | In 2008, MDRC launched the national Performance-Based Scholarship (PBS) Demonstration, seeking to evaluate whether performance-based scholarships are effective at improving retention among low-income students — that is, helping them persist in their studies — in different geographical locations with different amounts of monies over different durations. |
| Annotation: | In 2008, MDRC launched the national Performance-Based Scholarship (PBS) Demonstration, seeking to evaluate whether performance-based scholarships are effective at improving retention among low-income students — that is, helping them persist in their studies — in different geographical locations with different amounts of monies over different durations. Performance-based scholarships are paid to students in addition to federal and state aid to further assist them with meeting the costs associated with attending college. These scholarships incorporate three key principles: They are predicated on students meeting basic conditions regarding enrollment and grades in college courses, unlike merit aid, which tends to be tied to high school performance.
They are paid directly to students rather than to institutions, in order for students to "feel" the incentive and use the money in any way that will help them succeed academically (for example, to pay for books, supplies, reducing hours at a job, and so forth).
They supplement federal Pell Grants and state aid to help meet the needs of low-income students.
This brief provides an overview of the program that was implemented in California — one of six such programs in the PBS Demonstration. All six programs are being evaluated using a random assignment experimental design, in which students are randomly assigned either to a program group that receives a scholarship or to a control group that does not receive a scholarship. In the California case, the random assignment process assigned sample members to one of six possible scholarship types, five of which are performance-based and one that has no performance incentive attached to it, or to a control group that did not receive a scholarship from the program. All groups continued to receive other financial aid and scholarships for which they qualified. |
| Link: |
View Full Text
|
