<p>Son will be going to top private school this fall. He’s sometimes willing to let his grades suffer by not doing homework, so that he can spend more time on the part of his studies that he really enjoys. We want to motivate him to get A’s, not B’s, and B’s, not C’s. by contributing more for As than Bs, etc. Does anyone have suggestions on how to implement such a scheme? Thanks.</p>
<p>I’ve heard of parents making contracts with their kids but I’ve not done it with mine. There are a lot of natural consequences–grad school that both my kids may be interested in and S is on a merit scholarship that requires a minimum 3.0 GPA.</p>
<p>One parent made a contract that they would only pay for student if the student maintained an agreed upon GPA. If it fell below, the student would have to pay his/her own way but could earn his/her way back by making good grades & getting funded for future terms. Can’t remember the details as it is not anything I have had personal experience–from my student days or trying to motivate my kids.</p>
<p>Your S sounds like one of mine. You know, one solution is to let him be who he is. Help him set some threshold expectations (such as, no C’s). Then accept the fact that he tends to go deep, not broad. Help him choose courses and manage his time accordingly.</p>
<p>Subtracting money during the semester can reduce time available for studies, and thus lower the grades. If you go so far as to write a contract, that can be avoided by using the carrot (performance-based payment to student at end of each year or at graduation) or the stick (student supported at a constant rate, but accumulates a “parental loan” based on performance each semester and payable after graduation).</p>
<p>It would be hard to figure out a better way to motivate a student to seek out the easiest courses offered on campus. But this may not provide the curriculum that best meets the student’s educational goals.</p>
<p>Paying for grades is a bad idea.</p>
<p>The one sentence version of the plan sounds like a reasonable approach … although one I would never take with my kids.</p>
<p>But thinking about operationalizing the plan seems troubling to me. So I’m a kid in colelge facing this approach from my parents … how would it effect my decisions in school? (and let’s assume there is some maturity issue around working hard). </p>
<p>Which major should I pick? The one I love and have skills for but will be tough to get good grades … or the gut major where I easily can make the grade curve?</p>
<p>Course selection? I’m an engineer and have always been interested in taking Chinese but that is a B or C at best … or take yet another Economics course in which I’m pretty much assured an A</p>
<p>Research selection? My favorite prof offered me a 10-hour a week research spot … including my Xbox time this will yield some Bs. So mixed grades … or dump the research and go for grades and Xbox?</p>
<p>EC selection? I have a chance to the sports editor of the school newspaper but along with school and Xbox will lead to some Bs. So EC and some not so great grades … or dump the EC and keep the Xbox and maintain my grades.</p>
<p>Strange analogy … I went to a talk on highway safety once and studies showed when improvements were made to roads to improve safety after an initial improvement in overall safety accidents then returned to previous levels as drivers drove worse on the safer roads to return to the same level of overall safety.</p>
<p>I think this system will have a similar effect. Require grades and the student will reach the grades … however if they have maturity/discipline issues how they get those grades will likely be very counter productive … instead of improving their work habits they will minimize taking advantage of the opportunities at the school.</p>
<p>When a friend of mine was in college he had good merit scholarship, but to keep it he had to maintain a certain GPA. One semester it fell below minimum GPA, he lost the scholarship. His father refused to make up the difference. He had to take out a loan for that semester, and it has never happened again.</p>
<p>My D1 needs a 3.5 for internships she is interested in. There is a chance that she may get a C in one of her electives. She is working like crazy to make sure she could get all As in other 3 courses. We do have an agreement with her on minimum she needs to maintain, because we want to make sure she is not wasting our 50,000. She is doing a lot better than the minimum. As time goes on, she is more concerned about doing well than we are. She is thinking about internship in the summer, job upon graduation…I am the one that’s telling her to relax now.</p>
<p>I think the need for oversight shifts over time, for some it happens in HS and for others it comes later. I don’t think it is paying for grades, it is a contract that says “If we are paying X for your education, then you need to hold up your part of the bargain to at least get this much out of it, or we would rather use this money for something else.”</p>
<p>I also don’t think a student could easily pick the easiest courses in order to get a high GPA. My daughter has a set required courses for her majors, there is no way around it. What she has also found is, it may easy one semester but hard next semester. As one Cornell student said when he saw a course with median grade of A, he just assumed it was an easy course, but it turned to have mostly high achievers (a math course that wasn’t curved). At the same time, if a student could manage to pick the easiest course and still graduate, more power to him, an employer wouldn’t know either.</p>
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<p>That is not true at all. A payment scheme can be tied to the difficulty or subject matter of the courses, or some function of how much the student earns in the way of academic scholarships and prizes, grad school admissions and fellowships, GRE percentiles, or whatever other measures of quality one cares to include.</p>
<p>That’s if one is willing to go so far as to have explicit payments (or cancellations of debt) and contracts and formulas.</p>
<p>Are you really up to dealing with frictions created by such scheme? I would say that there will be much more negative impact on relationship between parties involved than advantages of scheme if any at all.</p>
<p>I’ll tell you the scheme we have crafted- of the EFC and incidentals we as a family must pay, parents pay 2/3 and student pays 1/3 provided a 3.0 is maintained. If lower than 3.0 but higher than 2.0, then we pay half, student pays half. If lower than a 2.0 then student pays all. If a 4.0, then we pay all. </p>
<p>We gave a free pass for first semester freshman year- this is a transitional time- so regardless of GPA there, we pay all. We are starting the counting with 2nd semester freshman year. (this semester), although all of this was explained and agreed upon before the start of school. </p>
<p>How it will work- we front all the money for the semester. She works a reasonable amount during the semester and has a small savings. At the end of the semester, we check the grades and GPA and figure out what she owes. So- she is, in effect, paying up for the immediate past performance. She will pay us as reimbursement for the money we already fronted. In the event she doesn’t have the cash to cover ( perhaps in the coming years) - we will “loan” her the amount until such time as she can pay it off. Interest free. We will do this each semester, so bad performance in one semester doesn’t impact the next. We will look at semester GPA, not cum. </p>
<p>I don’t think this will encourage her to take all gut courses. Even if she were so inclined, the distribution reqs and scheduling issues would prevent her ability to take all guts. I am hoping that this helps her address self- discipline and ensure that she doesn’t allow herself to slack off. </p>
<p>We have not yet done a pay-up. That will come in June for the first time. I suspect it will be difficult, as the child hates to part with money. But we will exact it. Hope this works to keep her on track.</p>
<p>We tried a study-to-earn incentive plan for SAT subject tests, since we couldn’t get S to even open a test prep book. No results at all. The concept of studying for a test is completely foreign to him, and though the money sounded like “a lot” to him, it wasn’t enough to motivate him to do something he really doesn’t want to do. So he made his 680-690 scores, which were not terrible, but not terribly impressive. Some things you just have to wait out, I think. </p>
<p>We are considering having him take out a modest student loan in his own name as a way of making him realize college isn’t free. And you have to start paying those loans off if you flunk out too.</p>
<p>notakid, they truly do not prepare for SAT II, if they just took class which in most cases probably AP with AP exam. Prep for finals and AP or one of them should be enough. I did not remember even having SAT II test prep books at home. Do they exist?</p>
<p>My colleague at work did incent his daughter financially - higher grades meant full support. </p>
<p>It worked for her - a good student very inclined to be social. </p>
<p>Wouldn’t work with my kids - but I have never had to say a thing to them about staying on top of schoolwork - they do it on their own and perform exceedingly well - no need for me to try and add value where I cannot. (I do engage with them intellectually quite often - but they are just self-starters in school). </p>
<p>I think the bottom line is that most of us know what makes our kids respond.</p>
<p>Read [Punished</a> by Rewards](<a href=“http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm]Punished”>http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm) and then decide if you really want to pay for grades. I don’t.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP, there are at least three competing series of SAT subject test prep books. Sure, if you’re taking an AP test at about the same time in the same subject, and you’re studying for that, you won’t need to worry about the SAT separately, but if you’re taking the Math2 alone and not even reviewing logarithms, for example, you are not going to make as high a score, unless you have been using them recently or just never forget anything.</p>
<p>I don’t think we are talking about paying for grades. We always have contracts with our kids, ever since they were little. You could call it setting parameter or boundary, but it is to encourage the right behavior and punish the bad ones. We are not obligated to pay for our kid’s college education. We do it because it would give them a better future. It could only happen if your kid wants it too. If your kid doesn’t want to put in the effort, why should you flush your money down the drain. This is no different than if you were to ask someone to invest in your venture. Your investor would expect you to uphold your part of the contract.</p>
<p>My experience with my kids is if I tell them what’s expect of them beforehand, we avoid a lot of argument or whining later.</p>
<p>I don’t think using monetary incentives would help. You just have to make your the students realize the importance of grades in terms of future employment and graduate school admissions. Might be easy or hard depending on the kid.</p>
<p>The concept that one is flushing one’s money down the drain if their kid graduates from college but gets B’s instead of A’s or C’s instead of B’s boggles my mind.</p>
<p>For OP, the idea of this kind of incentive system is repulsive to me. It sends a terrible personal message. But it also can serve to stifle the ‘depth’ part of someone who is so inclined, when that may be their own true road to success. This kind of micromanagement of someone’s college years is bound to have backlash.</p>
<p>I do agree with the poster that thinks such system will not change behavior much. Value of education is instilled already or not. Plus a year or two of college will be transformative as well. This will just end in you paying less for the college years, and if that is your goal, why not just be up front about it? If you don’t pay less, then you can have some years with your own self satisfaction, I suppose, but is that worth the toll on the relationship?</p>
<p>A good friend of mine has 3 kids that she and her husband put through college (all small Lac’s)–their deal was: we pay for A’s and B’s and you pay for C’s.
I like this and would add to my kid that if they are stuggling then we should know and might pay for a tutor.</p>