HOW CAN INCENTIVES IMPROVE THE SUCCESS OF DISADVANTAGED COLLEGE STUDENTS? Insights from the Social Science

Achievement gaps among college students from different social class, racial, or ethnic backgrounds are ubiquitous and a persistent problem in the United States (Bowen, Kurzweil, & Tobin, 2005; Steele, 2010). Students who are low-income, first-generation, or underrepresented racial or ethnic minorities receive lower grades, take longer to graduate, and drop out at higher rates than high-income, continuing-generation, or white and Asian students (Pascarella et al., 2004; Sirin, 2005).1 Because these underperforming students face an additional set of obstacles on the path to academic success, we refer to them as disadvantaged and to their higher performing peers as advantaged. Specifically, disadvantaged students tend to enter college with fewer of the academic skills (Pascarella, Pierson, Wolniak, & Terenzini, 2004; Warburton, Bugarin, & Nuñez, 2001) and financial resources (Walpole, 2003) that enable students to succeed. They are also more likely to confront prejudice or negative stereotypes about their group (Croizet & Claire, 1998; Steele & Aronson, 1995) and to lack the “rules of the game” for how to be a successful college student (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992; Carter, 2003; Lareau, 1987; Stephens, Fryberg, Markus, Johnson, & Covarrubias, 2012). These additional challenges often contribute to students’ underperformance and can prevent them from fully realizing their potential (Stephens, Markus, & Fryberg, 2012; Steele, 2010). Efforts to reduce achievement gaps must therefore address these obstacles.