Scholarships and student effort: Evidence from Colombia’s Ser Pilo Paga program

Gloria Bernal and Jeffrey Penney

Economics of Education Review, 2019, vol. 72, issue C, 121-130

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: Colombia; Effort; Scholarships; Ser Pilo Paga; Test scores (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I22 I23 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:72:y:2019:i:c:p:121-130

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2019.04.008

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