Beyond Lottery Dreams

• In Event: Postsecondary Opportunities and Trajectories

Abstract

Private scholarships are often heralded as the best way to pay for college; however, do they live up to their claims as a way to fund a college education? Using three sources of data (a scholarship report, surveys and data on all students in a large school district, and counselor interviews), we find that private scholarships are low-probability options and tend to award small amounts of money. Furthermore, preliminary analyses show that private scholarships distract many students from more dependable routes to financing their college education. This paper explores how students understand scholarships and how their beliefs around the value of private scholarships adversely impact their college actions and decisions.

Authors

• Kelly Iwanaga Becker, Northwestern University

• James E. Rosenbaum, Northwestern University