What if good students went to College for free? What would happen?...?

Question

What if good students went to College for free?

Imagine if a college like Rutgers University offered a merit based refunds to it students that got good grades. If you earn a 4.0 g.p.a, you get a 100% refund on your tuition. Something like:

Refund%=100*[G.P.A.]-300
(i.e. a >3.0 g.p.a. gets you a 0% refund)

What kind of impact would this have on:
-The College
-The Student
-The Public &
-The World

I proposed this question in one of my classes, I'm a Economics & Sociology major so I have my own ideas, but interested in new/different/creative ones.

This goes to any student already accepted and enrolled. Any grade below a 3.0 still pays full price, and the "discount" increases from there:

3.0 -> 0% discount
3.1 -> 10% "
3.2 -> 20% "
...
4.0 -> 100% discount

Answer 1

I like that idea. However, economically speaking, this leads to bad behavior.

Since the top scoring students are not going to pay. Their portion of the costs would have to be paid by the students with lower grades (assuming no public funding). Now this doubles the burden on the students that are already struggling to study. They will start losing the incentive to continue to not get the benefit, while paying for others to benefit. So, the drop out rate will increase. As there are fewer students on the bottom end of the grades, their cost will escalate and drive the remaining non-scorers out. That will leave with a system of no payers. Now the top scoring candidates will have no source of funding or education.

A modified version that might work is to tax the general public and subsidize the top scoring students thru refunds. Current system has a lot of scholarship funds. All it will take is to redirect them according to the formula you suggested, rather than pre-granting them during admissions.

Answer 2

You did not specify how the system would be financed, so I am assuming extra tax money would pay for the system

There would be grade inflation at colleges since teachers would be more reluctant to give out bad grades and cause student to drop out of school because of financial hardship. The administration would agree because the more money available for tuition the more the school could take in, so there would be a small tuition increase, but not enough to cover the cost of the program
Students would become even more grade mongering, avoiding "hard " subjects. It would probably increase cheating also. Incentives matter.
The public would pay more taxes to support the system.

If the cost came from tuition increases it would decrease the number of student enrolled in school overall because of risk aversion, but teaches and students would have the same incentives but administrators would not and would try to hold down grades inflation..

Answer 3

There is no free, it's just a question of who's paying. What happens with your plan is that people who do not benefit in any way from Junior getting a college education are the ones who pay for Junior's college education.

Answer 4

you're a econ important and that i'm accounting important, 2 diverse worlds. that's resourceful yet I dont think of it relatively is sustained except you improve tution. devoid of training improve no longer adequate gross revenues will are available in to pay for numerous working and capital fees. Now elevating tution is like elevating taxes, in case you bypass above the optimal curve, it would discourage pupils from attending a college. The valuable that could relate out of your thought is that the college in reaction on your coverage can improve the grading standards, which could make it complicated for human beings graduate. i think of you're able to attempt to make your strategies up why training fees upward thrust previous inflation. I even have reported as my college and that they say "well being care has long previous up thats why" nicely I say you and that i as college pupils could attempt to make your strategies up how we can use unfastened markets to maintain college low fee. additionally does to lots economic help unquestionably improve tution fee, as a econ important i think of you are able to answer that query extra wisely then i'm able to.