Early Award Scholarship Program Results in Improved Attendance and State Math Test Scores for Students from Lower-Income Households

William Elliott (), Nick Sorensen, Haotian Zheng and Megan O’Brien
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William Elliott: School of Social Work, University of Michigan, 1080 S University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
Nick Sorensen: Summitlab Corporation, Research Institute in Evergreen, Summitlab 29029 Upper Bear Creek Road, Evergreen, CO 80439, USA
Haotian Zheng: Center for Social Development, University of Washington St Louis Brown School, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
Megan O’Brien: School of Social Work, University of Michigan, 1080 S University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA

Economies, 2023, vol. 11, issue 3, 1-13

Abstract: In this study we conduct a quasi-experimental analysis comparing students who enrolled in Early Award Scholarship Program (EASP) (formerly Promise Scholars) at any time during the 2016–17 or 2017–18 school year with their counterparts who did not enroll in the program during this time. We employed an inverse-propensity weighting (IPW) design to adjust for baseline differences in characteristics between students who did enroll in EASP (treatment) and students who did not enroll in the program (comparison) using pretreatment administrative data from 2015–16. This IPW approach successfully removed baseline differences for baseline equivalence between a treatment and comparison group. Our findings show that participation in EASP results in significant educational benefits—higher state math test scores and improved attendance—for students from lower-income households (students receiving free/reduced lunch) but not their economically more advantaged peers. No impacts were found for ELA test scores. In short, these findings suggest that EASP may be an effective gap-closing program that improves math achievement and attendance for students from lower-income households. Effects are stronger for students who earned more award dollars by participating in more incentivized engagement activities across the 2016–17 and 2017–18 school years.

Keywords: children’s savings accounts; assets; early award scholarship; low income; elementary education; academic achievement; standardized test scores; attendance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E F I J O Q (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jecomi:v:11:y:2023:i:3:p:82-:d:1088922

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