学校助学金对弱势学生的影响：来自罗马尼亚的实验证据

Policy Research Working Paper The Impact of School Grants Experimental Evidence from Romania Rafael de HoyosAndrei MunteanuCristian Pop-Eleches Education and Skills Global DepartmentJune 2026 A verified reproducibility package for this paper isavailable athttp://reproducibility.worldbank.org,clickherefor direct access. Policy Research Working Paper11408 Abstract This study analyzes the impact of the Romania SecondaryEducation Project, which was designed to improve studentretention, graduation rates and pass rates on a national end-of-high-school exam for low-achievement high schools inRomania. The program was implemented in three waves,September 2017, September 2018, and September 2020,with eligible high schools randomly assigned to each. The significant impact on (i) student preferences for attendinga program high school, (ii) student retention rates, (iii)high school graduation rates, (iv) enrollment in the post-high school baccalaureate exam, (v) baccalaureate exam passrates, or (vi) baccalaureate exam scores. There was a smallincrease in girls’ passing rates (3 percentage points). How-ever, there was little heterogeneity in the null effects by grant This paper is a product of the Education and Skills Global Department. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank toprovide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. PolicyResearch Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authors may be contacted The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about developmentissues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry thenames of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those The Impact of School Grants on DisadvantagedStudents:Experimental Evidence from Romania Rafael de Hoyos§Andrei Munteanu¶Cristian Pop-Eleches* 1Introduction Romania has faced persistent challenges in secondary education outcomes, including highdropout rates in high school, poor performance in the end-of-high school standardized test(Baccalaureate exam), and low transition rates to tertiary education. For instance, in theearly 2010s, roughly half of Romania’s high school seniors did not transition to univer-sity,and the national, end-of-high-school Baccalaureate exam pass rate hovered around 50%. Inresponse, the Government of Romania, with World Bank support, launched the RomaniaSecondary Education Project (ROSE) in 2016 (World Bank,forthcoming).ROSE was a Investment in school-level resources is often seen as a pathway to improving studentoutcomes, but global evidence on the effectiveness of such interventions is mixed. On onehand, several studies have found that increased funding and resources can positively influenceeducational attainment, especially when funds are directed toward evidence-based activities.For example, research in the United States has shown that sustained increases in per-pupilspending can lead to higher graduation rates and improved adult outcomes (Jackson et al.,2016). On the other hand, numerous reviews in developing country contexts have concludedthat additional resources do not automatically translate into better learning or retention School grant programs in various countries illustrate this nuanced picture. In some cases,modest grants have been associated with improvements in inputs and student participation,but the effects on learning outcomes have often been limited. A recent experimental study inMexico tested the impact of providing cash grants to primary schools and found no significanteffects on student test scores (Romero et al.,2024), suggesting that increased funding alonewas insufficient to raise achievement. Other interventions thatcombinefunding with specific This paper presents the results of an impact evaluation of the high school grant componentof the ROSE project implemented in Romania. We exploit the staggered and randomizedrollout of ROSE across three separate waves, allowing us to causally assess whether ROSEgrants led to measurable improvements in key educational outcomes such as dropout rates, ponents of ROSE had no significant impact on education outcomes. These results are true forschools in rural and urban areas, regardless of school size, grant amount, and socio-economic This evaluation, one of the first randomized controlled trials in education in Romania,contributes to the literature by examining whether an infusion of resources at the high school 2Institutional Background and Intervention High schools in Romania are upper-secondary institutions that cover grades 9 to 12 and areattended by students who are typically 14 to 18 years old. According to the law, completingprimary and secondary is compulsory in Romania.1Most