Should Students Be Paid for Good Grades?
2009-01-15 18:18阅读:
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 or
ganization 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?'
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1871528,00.html