As the semester winds down, most of us are getting ready for or looking for internships and employment for this summer. With Mount Holyoke is raising the cost of tuition next year and many students shuddering at the thought of paying for loans, being paid to go to school sounds like a very good idea.
But does it improve one’s performance in school? That is one question a study done by Harvard economist Roland Fryer in junior high schools in New York, Dallas, Washington D.C., and Chicago tried to answer. The schools paid students based on different achievements, such as attendance, grades, class work and tests. At the Takoma Education Campus in Washington D.C., students were offered payment vouchers in these achievements, and found that the boys performed better with the money incentive as compared to the girls. Fryer had expected New York to show great improvement, so it came as a surprise when there was no significant student improvement. Although in Washington the students performed better on standardized tests, Chicago students did not improve in tests, despite the fact that they achieved better grades.
So what does this mean? Hopefully, paying students money will provide a lesson in self discipline and motivation that will help these students prefer to be challenged by learning rather than earning.
Check out the Photo slide at the Times here or see the full article here.
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