Performance-based scholarships have two main goals: (1) to give students more money for college; and (2) to provide incentives for academic progress. MDRC launched the Performance-Based Scholarship (PBS) Demonstration in 2008 to evaluate the effectiveness of these scholarships in a diverse set of states, institutions, and low-income student…

Using detailed individual-level data from public universities in the state of Ohio, I estimate the effect of various institutional expenditures on the probability of graduating from college. Using a competing risks regression framework, I find differential impacts of expenditure categories across student characteristics. I estimate that student…

Previous studies found that the small size of schools or school districts mitigated the negative influence of poverty on academic achievement in California, Alaska, and West Virginia. The Matthew Project extends this research in four additional states selected to provide varied settings. Ohio is a very diverse, urbanized state with a large…