Do Community College "Promise" Programs with Low-Bar Merit Criteria Improve High School Performance?

Autor/inn/en	Monaghan, David B.; Coca, Vanessa M.
Titel	Do Community College "Promise" Programs with Low-Bar Merit Criteria Improve High School Performance?
Quelle	In: Community College Review, 51 (2023) 4, S.509-537 (29 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Monaghan, David B.)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0091-5521
DOI	10.1177/00915521231181941
Schlagwörter	Community Colleges; College Programs; High School Students; Academic Achievement; Eligibility; Low Income Students; Merit Scholarships; Attendance; Grades (Scholastic); Grade Point Average; Gender Differences; Racial Differences; Lunch Programs; English Language Learners; Paying for College; Wisconsin (Milwaukee) + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Community college; Community College; Studienprogramm; High school; High schools; Student; Students; Oberschule; Schüler; Schülerin; Studentin; Schulleistung; Eignung; Leistungsvergütung; Anwesenheit; Notenspiegel; Geschlechterkonflikt; Rassenunterschied; Mittagessen; Studienfinanzierung
Abstract	Objective/Research Question: Community college "Promise" programs have proliferated recently, particularly in areas with many low-income, academically struggling students. Many Promise programs restrict eligibility by high school performance but set eligibility thresholds quite low. As such they function as "low-bar" merit scholarships, and merit scholarships are often believed to incentivize improved academic performance. But do such "low-bar" merit scholarships boost high school attendance and grades? Methods: We investigate impacts of one such program, the Milwaukee Area Technical College Promise, on high school students in Milwaukee Public Schools, exploiting program design features to identify treatment effects through a differences-in-differences strategy. Results: The program appears to have marginally improved high school grades while slightly lowering attendance. These effects cancel each other out in terms of meeting combined GPA and attendance eligibility thresholds. Estimated positive impacts on GPA were statistically significant but very small for males, Black students, free lunch eligible students, special education students and current English language learners, while impacts on attendance were negative for most subgroups. The positive GPA effect was restricted to the program's second year. Conclusions: We do not find strong evidence that low-bar scholarships are effective at improving academic performance. Policymakers should reconsider conventional wisdom underlying inclusion of merit criteria in broad-based scholarships. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01