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…

This study examined if the Tennessee Education Lottery Scholarship (TELS), which began in 2004, was related to student retention at the six Tennessee Board of Regents four-year institutions. This study investigated the impact of the TELS on student retention at TBR universities and general knowledge regarding retention. Post-facto data were…