How should colleges determine whether students are placed into developmental or college-level courses? Each year, colleges place millions of students into developmental math and English courses upon enrollment. To do so, colleges most often use a high-stakes placement test, which numerous research studies have shown to be highly inaccurate in…

This paper presents effects after five years of a performance-based scholarship offered to low-income entering freshmen at The University of New Mexico, a medium-sized public university. The program, which was evaluated using a randomized controlled trial, provided eligible students with up to $1,000 in additional aid per semester for four…