The researcher Mauro Mediavilla (IEB-University of Valencia) has won the José Luís Moreno Becerra Prize 2013 for his doctoral thesis, which shows the relationship between scholarships and study grants and the academic success rate in post-compulsory secondary schooling in Spain. The Moreno Becerra Prize is awarded every two years by the Asociación de Economía de la Educación (AEDE) for the best thesis in terms of its relevance, interest, and methodology, etc. Besides publicly recognizing the quality of the research, the prize includes the publication of the thesis by the publishing house, Aranzadi S.A.
Scholarships and school success
The winning thesis (A quasi-experimental evaluation of the effect of scholarships and study grants on school success rates) concludes that a student has a 20% greater chance of successfully completing their post-compulsory secondary schooling if they receive a scholarship. The results also show that the effect of the scholarship policy varies in accordance with the characteristics of the individual, their parents and the home in which they live. Thus, it is confirmed that the positive impact of a scholarship on educational attainment increases in the case of females and students from disadvantaged homes. The study also reports other significant elements in the generation of differential effects, such as family structure and the education and employment of the parents. One of the main implications of the results is the need to design clearly focused policies facilitating an improvement in the overall effectiveness of academic success in post-compulsory secondary education.
The thesis seeks to quantify the impact of scholarship policies implemented in Spain during the years 2004 and 2005 on the school success rates observed in 2006. To do so, it uses information provided by the Living Conditions Survey (ECV 2006) published by Eurostat in 2009, which provides details concerning the amounts received by beneficiaries in the form of scholarships and study grants. Aranzadi will publish Mauro Mediavilla’s thesis in 2014.
