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On Money and Motivation: A Quasi-Experimental Analysis of Financial Incentives for College Achievement

By Judith Scott-Clayton
Programs linking college aid to academic achievement could work either by lowering the cost of college or by inducing additional student effort. This article examines the PROMISE program in West Virginia, which offers free tuition to students who maintain a minimum GPA and course load. Using administrative data, Scott-Clayton exploits discontinuities in the eligibility formula and the timing of implementation to estimate causal effects, finding robust and significant impacts on key academic outcomes. Impacts are concentrated around the annual requirements for scholarship renewal, suggesting that the program works via incentives for academic achievement, not simply by relaxing financial constraints. A version of this paper was published in the Journal of Human Resources, vol. 46.
Download paper
October 2009
View article (subscription may be required)
June 2011

Related Publications

April 2017

Undergraduate Financial Aid in the United States

December 2016

Pell Grants as Performance-Based Aid? An Examination of Satisfactory Academic Progress Requirements in the Nation’s Largest Need-Based Aid Program

August 2016

Financial Aid, Debt Management, and Socioeconomic Outcomes: Post-College Effects of Merit-Based Aid

Additional Resources

For more policy briefs and fact sheets, visit CCRC’s Policy Resources page.

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