Targeting High School Scholarships to the Poor: The Impact of a Program in Mexico

Based on an RCT, we evaluate a scholarship program in Mexico (PROBEMS) aimed at improving graduation rates and test scores among upper secondary school students from poor backgrounds. We find that, on average, the program has no impact either on graduation rates or on Math and Spanish test scores. We point to two possible reasons for this failure: a. the program was badly targeted, with many of the recipients being from less disadvantaged families than intended; b) the prior academic achievement of those eligible was often insufficient for completing successfully the academic requirements of upper secondary school. This points to accumulated achievement deficits that could be addressed by interventions targeting learning at an earlier stage.