کمک مالی برای تحصیل خارج از کشور دانشجویان: تجزیه و تحلیل اقتصادی

This paper examines the scholarship payback policy embedded in a study abroad program. A full payback policy requires a student to return the whole amount of the scholarship should he fail to achieve a target post-program performance, whereas a partial payback policy requires a payback amount in proportion to the extent of the under-performance. It is found that, the university should adopt a fixed amount scholarship to maximize the average post-program ability. There is also an optimal partial payback policy.

Most universities provide scholarships to reduce the cost of study abroad programs and henceforth promote student participation in these programs. For example, At University of Texas, Austin, preference is given to their programs based on merit and financial need and awards are approximately $1000 per student. At University of Texas, San Antonio, the award ranges from $500 to $3000 per student based on need and merit for any program. Iowa State University College of Business offers scholarships from $100 to $2000 for applicants with GPA above 2.5 for undergraduate students and above 3.0 for graduate students. At Indiana University, study abroad scholarship is up to $3000 for the academic year and $500–$750 for summer for school sponsored programs. The award is based on financial need and merit. Michigan State University Eli Broad College of Business offers $200–$2000 to their own programs to applicants with GPA over 3.0. While a majority of students are motivated by enhanced learning opportunities in foreign countries, some students choose to study abroad for consumption purposes. As a result, there will always be cases that students return to the home institutions with less than satisfactory performance. In response, the university may institute a scholarship payback policy to reduce the incentives for taking up study abroad scholarship for personal consumption purposes. This paper constructs a theoretical framework to analyze the effects of full payback and partial payback policies on study abroad programs. The full payback policy chooses a target post-program performance level such that any student failing to achieve this level must pay back the full amount of the scholarship awarded. On the other hand, the partial payback policy requires the payback amount to be proportional to the degree of under-performance. In a small scale survey, we find Murray State University, University of Colorado — Boulder, University of North Texas, State University of new York — Oswego, University of South Florida — Tampa, and Georgia State University all adopt full payback policies. All universities request for payback for academic under-performance except Georgia State University which applies to non-attendance only. College of Business at University of Texas — San Antonio experimented with partial payback policy in 2007. In this case, students were asked for payback for each failing class. We analyze the responses of students to these policies, specifically, how they choose optimal effort levels should they participate in the study abroad program and then how they decide to participate or not. Next we consider the problem faced by the university regarding the choices of the scholarship format and the target performance. We assume the university attempts to maximize the average post-program ability of its student population and evaluate the possibility of the scholarship to depend upon the pre-program ability (which is a policy currently adopted by most universities). Thereafter we determine the optimal target performance level.1 The remaining of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we describe the framework for the full payback scheme and individual student decision on efforts and participation. Section 3 provides the optimal scholarship format and Section 4 the determination of the target performance level. Partial payback scheme is analyzed in Section 5. The following section illustrates the results with specific functional forms. Finally, Section 7 concludes the paper.

This paper evaluates the effects of the scholarship payback policy on study abroad programs. A full payback policy requires a student to return the whole amount of the scholarship he receives should he fail to achieve a target post-program performance, whereas a partial payback policy requires a payback amount in proportion to the extent of the under-performance. For either payback policy, it is shown that students with better pre-program ability are more likely to choose to study abroad. If the university attempts to maximize the average post-program ability over its student population, then a fixed amount scholarship should be adopted. The conventional approach that allows the pre-program ability to be a determining factor of the scholarship amount (for example, a student with a higher GPA has a better chance to receive a larger amount of scholarship) is shown to be sub-optimal. Finally, both payback policies are found to be desirable for the university to improve its goal. As analytical results are difficult (if possible), further comparisons between the two policies require numerical simulations.