TY - JOUR
T1 - Scholarships and student effort: Evidence from Colombia’s Ser Pilo Paga program
AU - Bernal Nisperuza, Gloria Lucia
AU - Penney Penney, Jeffrey
PY - 2019/10
Y1 - 2019/10
N2 - Launched in 2014, Colombia’s Ser Pilo Paga program aimed to increase college enrollment for low income students by providing 10,000 means-tested scholarships annually to the highest performers on the country’s high school exit exam. We theorize that the introduction of the scholarship incentivized these students to better prepare for this exam. Exploiting the SES thresholds for eligibility using a regression discontinuity design, we find that students who qualify for the scholarship score about 0.09 test score standard deviations higher than those who do not. We also find that the program increased the representation of the poorest students in the top 9% of test takers. Survey evidence suggests that students spent more time and money preparing for the test.
AB - Launched in 2014, Colombia’s Ser Pilo Paga program aimed to increase college enrollment for low income students by providing 10,000 means-tested scholarships annually to the highest performers on the country’s high school exit exam. We theorize that the introduction of the scholarship incentivized these students to better prepare for this exam. Exploiting the SES thresholds for eligibility using a regression discontinuity design, we find that students who qualify for the scholarship score about 0.09 test score standard deviations higher than those who do not. We also find that the program increased the representation of the poorest students in the top 9% of test takers. Survey evidence suggests that students spent more time and money preparing for the test.
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2019.04.008
U2 - 10.1016/j.econedurev.2019.04.008
DO - 10.1016/j.econedurev.2019.04.008
M3 - Artículo
SN - 0272-7757
JO - Economics of Education Review
JF - Economics of Education Review
ER -