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You're probably thinking that we already place enormous value on our grades. Many of us worked our asses off for 12 years just so we could get into college to study some more. But since the average college graduate earns about half a million dollars more in their lifetime than someone with just a high school diploma, you have to wonder, do we really value our grades enough? Research suggests that we'd all be better off if we opened our wallets and paid our kids to study.
Wait, What?
This is an outrage! Nobody paid you to go to school! Those little spoiled brats should be thankful they even have school!
But here's something funny about minors: They a) don't like to listen to adults and b) aren't the best long-term planners. When we tell 12-year-olds to earn good grades so that, in more than five years, they can go to a place where they have to earn more good grades to have a better chance at having a great job five years after that, they had already stopped listening before we got halfway through the sentence. Kids need more immediacy in their rewards. In short, you need to bribe them.
A Harvard University economist analyzed what happened when schools paid their students to study. And guess what? The grades improved, the students were more likely to go to college and get hired, and sales of music designed to piss off parents probably rose 500 percent. But that's probably not all that surprising -- what was especially crazy in this study was that the students earned better grades even when they were paid just for showing up.
In other words: Just treat school like a job.
So let's say we pay an eighth grader $20 a week to attend school until graduation. That amounts to a little over five grand. If she graduates, she will earn more money, which means she will pay more tax -- around $2,400 more. Which means that, within two years, we break even on the investment. Continue the principle throughout college, and it's all dollar signs, according to this chart:
This is why the District of Columbia recently announced that it would be paying kids to attend summer school. Again, it seems kind of cynical. But then again ... what are we afraid of? That we're not preparing these kids for what to expect in the adult world? Where people don't do things purely for financial incentive?
I know I personally would have worked harder in school if I got paid $20 a week to be there, and if my parents paid me for good grades I would have been rolling in the money and would have retired by the time I graduated High School.
So like many people here in the US my wallet is empty most of the time. I recently came into some really hard times because I needed to pay off some bills and get my kids ready for school. I had exceeded my credit limit and overdrawn my back account and was completely tapped out until I found 
I found 
