Taking a Chance on College
分析田纳西州教育彩票奖学金项目，发现该政策虽未增加学生留本州上大学的意愿，但显著提高了ACT考试成绩，表明对学生成绩的奖励能有效改善高中表现。
Abstract Most policies seeking to improve high school achievement historically either provided incentives for educators or punished students. Since 1991, however, over a dozen states, comprising approximately a quarter of the nation’s high school seniors, have implemented broad-based merit scholarship programs that reward students for their high school achievement with college financial aid. This paper analyzes one of these initiatives, the Tennessee Education Lottery Scholarships, using individual-level data from the ACT exams. The program did not achieve one of its stated goals, inducing more students to prefer to stay in Tennessee for college, but it did induce large increases in performance on the ACT. Policies that reward students for performance do affect behavior and may be an effective way to improve high school achievement.