Should Students Be Paid for Good Grades?
Time Magazine
Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2009
By Laura Fitzpatrick
Back in the day, a good report card earned you a parental pat on the back, but now it could be money in your pocket. Experiments with cash incentives for students have been catching on in public-school districts across the country, and so has the debate over whether they are a brilliant tool for hard-to-motivate students or bribery that will destroy any chance of fostering a love of learning. Either way, a rigorous new study — one of relatively few on such pay-for-performance programs — found that the programs get results: cash incentives help low-income students stay in school and get better grades. (See TIME's special report on paying for college.)
According to a study released today by the social-policy research group MDRC, a nonpartisan organization perhaps best known for evaluating state welfare-to-work programs, cash incentives combined with counseling offered "real hope" to low-income and nontraditional students at two Louisiana community colleges. The program for low-income parents, funded by the Louisiana Department of Social Services and the Louisiana Workforce Commission, was simple: enroll in college at least half-time, maintain at least a C average and earn $1,000 a semester for up to two terms. Participants, who were randomly selected, were 30% more likely to register for a second semester than were students who were not offered the supplemental financial aid. And the participants who were first offered cash incentives in spring 2004 — and thus whose progress was tracked for longer than that of subsequent groups before Hurricane Katrina abruptly forced researchers to suspend the survey for several months in August 2005 — were also more likely than their peers to be enrolled in college a year after they had finished the two-term program. (Read "Putting College Tuition on Plastic.")
Students offered cash incentives in the Louisiana program didn't just enroll in more classes; they earned more credits and were more likely to attain a C average than were nonparticipants. And they showed psychological benefits too, reporting more positive feelings about themselves and their abilities to accomplish their goals for the future. "It's not very often that you see effects of this magnitude for anything that we test," notes Thomas Brock, MDRC's director for young adults and postsecondary-education policy.
Although U.S. college enrollment has climbed, college completion rates have not. Only a third of students who enroll in community colleges — which educate nearly half the undergraduates in the U.S. — get a degree within six years. Hence the interest in this study among such philanthropic powerhouses as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which helped fund the MDRC study. (MDRC, by the way, was created in 1974 by the Ford Foundation and a group of federal agencies; originally named the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, it now goes only by the abbreviation.)
Given that the follow-up study of the program was disrupted as the schools struggled to rebuild enrollment and facilities in the wake of Katrina, it's difficult to draw any long-term conclusions about the effects that cash incentives will have on community-college students. However, there could soon be more data to parse: with a grant from the Gates Foundation, MDRC plans to test cash incentives at community and state colleges in California, New Mexico, New York and Ohio.
Despite the study's impressive, albeit short-term results, some critics in higher education are concerned that cash incentives will encourage students to start taking easier courses to ensure they'll do well enough to pocket the money. "Everyone knows what the gut classes are when you're in college," notes Kirabo Jackson, an assistant professor of labor economics at Cornell who has studied cash incentives for high school students. "By rewarding people for a GPA, you're actually giving them an impetus to take an easier route through college." Other critics note that students' internal drive to learn may be sapped as they focus on getting an external reward.
But those involved with the study note that particularly in this economy, cash incentives could help part-time students devote more hours to their studies. Faced with soaring bills for tuition, books and housing, many college students need a job just to get by. In the Louisiana program, all the participants were low-income parents, three-quarters of whom were unmarried or living without a partner. "We're talking about adults who have quite a number of other responsibilities," says Brock. "When you're talking about minors who are required by law to be in school, that's a different situation."
Arnel Cosey, assistant vice chancellor for student affairs and provost for the City Park Campus at New Orleans' Delgado Community College, one of two schools in the study, says she understands why some people are concerned that cash incentives are nothing more than bribery. "But on the other hand, I think because I am involved with these students daily, I'm not sure that I'm opposed to bribing," she says. "If that's what we need to do for these people to reach these goals, which ultimately will lead to them having a better life, I wish I had more money to give."
Besides, as Cosey adds, if all goes well, students will be getting cash incentives for their work soon after graduating — in the form of a paycheck. "Most of us wouldn't turn up at work every day if we weren't getting a check," she says. "What's wrong with starting the payment a little early?"
Should Students Get Paid for Good Grades?
Sparknotes.com
By Chris_Diken
February 24, 2009
You've probably heard the expression, “Learning is its own reward.” And you probably laughed, because while this old chestnut may be true, you can’t use learning to buy stuff. (Try flashing your transcript at the Best Buy checkout and let us know the results.) But you can buy stuff with money, which is why some parents give their offspring cold hard cashola for making respectable grades—payment plans may involve $10 for every A, $5 for each B, and a handful of crumpled singles for straight C’s.
Some people have a problem with this sort of arrangement. The way they see it,financially compensated students are “bribed” by their parents, and that sends the wrong message aboutthe importance ofeducation. We at SparkNotes humbly disagree. We feel that some modest remuneration at report-card time isn’t out of line.
Here are five reasons that learnin’ and earnin’ isn’t the criminal act some make it out to be:
1. Money is a great motivator.
Remember the time your dad asked you to mow the lawn on a sweltering summer day because it would “build character”? And remember how you kept playing Halo in your air-conditioned room and pretended not to hear him? We bet you would have built the hell out of that character had Mr. Andrew Jackson made an appearance. The same applies to studying algebra: Youmight somehow benefit from struggling to memorize quadratic equations, but you’lldefinitely put that American currency to solid use. Like on some new cell phone ringtones or something.
2. It’s a lesson in capitalism.
Students who are fiscally rewarded have an inherently better understanding of capitalist theory than students who achieve because of some quest for personal satisfaction. It throws into sharp relief one of capitalism’s central tenets: Each person owns his or her own labor and is permitted to sell the use of that labor to anyone else. And the last time we checked, learning qualifies as labor.
3. It’s a lesson in life.
Some kids are naturally smarter than others—this is called genetics. Nitpicky types may argue that paying for academic performance is not fair to those with inferior genetics because they’ll struggle to earn as much as the more intelligent students. This is a possibility, but in case you haven’t noticed by now: LIFE IS UNFAIR. Might as well learn that lesson as early as possible.
4. Everyone else gets a cut.
The principal gets paid. Teachers get paid. The nurse and librarian get paid. The janitor gets paid. And their checks arrive even if they do a bad job; you’re only asking for dough if you getgood grades. (Seriously, though, if anyone has a scheme for getting paid for bad grades, let us know.)
5. It just might work.
Students who study harder in order to make money may find the extra effort actually results in better grades. Some of these students may even find this success gets them excited about learning, and that all this time they just needed a little extra incentive. Makes you wonder whether the U.S. government should enact up a bailout for floundering students.
Do you get paid for good grades? If not, do you think you should?