Teen Girls Get Money For College By Not Getting Knocked Up
Posted by: Jessica Wakeman
Filed in:
news
1:10PM, Thursday November 5th 2009
Here’s a unique scholarship money idea: earning cash for your empty womb! A program at University of North Carolina at Greenboro called College Bound Sisters, started by two doctorate-holding nurses, has paid teen girls one dollar per day for college if they don’t get pregnant.
The participating girls are the younger sisters of teen mothers, who are statistically at risk for becoming teen moms themselves. Over the course of several years, two groups of girls (12 to 14 and 15 to 18) meet separately over food each week for an hour and a half for goal-setting and planning for college, as well as sex ed. Thankfully, it’s not a abstinence-only group so the girls learn useful information about birth control. Quarterly meetings are also held for parents of girls in the program. Each week a girl is not pregnant, she has $7 placed in her college fund, which is given to her when she enrolls in college.
Well, hmph. I was a super-nerd in school, so I hate the idea that some people get rewarded good behavior while others get nothing for it. It’s really not fair to us nerds and boring people who do what we’re “supposed” to be doing! Still, one can’t ignore that some people say this program might work.
According to AOL’s DailyFinance.com, 10 girls out of 125 girls who participated College Bound Sisters have graduated from college, while 40 graduated from high school, and only six have gotten pregnant. Likewise, Wendy Amundson from Planned Parenthood told DailyFinance.com about a similar program to prevent teen mothers from having a second child, which gives out gift cards and CDs for reaching certain goals. She said in 15 years, only six out of 540 girls have had a second pregnancy.
Ultimately, I think it’s a good program in an ends-justifying-the-means way because it helps more young women pay for college, especially disadvantaged women or women of color. But really, if I had buckets of money to spend on ending teen pregnancy, I wouldn’t put it towards stuff like this. Isn’t this program really just a Band-Aid solution for a small group of girls? I think it’s much more sensible to teach all children and teens nationwide comprehensive sex education and make birth control easily available. [Daily Finance]
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EastCoastMale
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 01:14 pm: [report]
I agree in that I would rather put the money towards the availability of popular birth control methods and increased education efforts on the use of them and the possible side effects.
Do the teen boys get paid for not impregnating a woman?
lea322
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 01:19 pm: [report]
I agree that putting the money toward education on a broader level would be a great idea. The reward program, however, is just that: a reward. It gives teens a more tangible, concrete reason to not get pregnant, and that’s something people of all ages respond well to.
MuchoMacho
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 01:20 pm: [report]
end result is good… but i think this is dumb. by rewarding someone for fulfilling the least of her obligations, youre only teaching her the wrong lessons…
lea322
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 01:22 pm: [report]
And to finish my train of though…
If the reward method is able to motivate more teens than traditional education, then I think it’s an idea that should be integrated on some level into sexual education.
Perceptible
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 01:32 pm: [report]
I think it’s great idea! These are teens who are already at risk for teen pregnancy. This both educates and proactively rewards. And it has been shown that rewarding good behavior is more effective than punishing “bad” behavior as a general principal. (Now don’t go jumping all over me for comparing teen pregnancy with “bad” behavior. This is just a very broad generalization.)
@Jessica, you’d like to be rewarded for having been a nerd? Are you saying teen nerds don’t generally have the opportunity to become pregnant? You wrote that these were teens who’d had an older sibling who’d become a teen parent, statistically putting them at a higher risk. They’re not being rewarded for being “nerds,” they’re being incentivized and educated.
@EastCoastMale, that’s a good point! Why not also reward the boys for not impregnating a teenage girl? They could extend that program to boys who’ve had an older brother who had gotten a girl pregnant.
Maybe with this program there will be one or two fewer guests on Maury.
MuchoMacho
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 01:36 pm: [report]
maybe we could just educate them about how much harder it is to get an education and achieve success in life when you have a child before youre ready… let them discipline themselves into not getting pregnant. we could spend the money theyre already spending on free condoms.
joyy
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 01:42 pm: [report]
All children and teens SHOULD have comprehensive sex education and birth control SHOULD be easily available. That doesn’t mean that these are the only ways to actually make a difference. Ever hear of not putting all your eggs in one basket? This is basically diversifying prevention efforts.
Think about your retirement fund - some money goes into higher-risk investments, some money is in moderate risk, some is in low-risk.
That shouldn’t replace comprehensive sex ed and accessible birth control, but if your goal is to reduce teen pregancy, it makes sense to spend a little extra time with the kids who are at the most at risk.
Sex ed to all kids would = universal prevention. Extra incentive and sex ed boosters to kids at higher risk = selected prevention.
If you want to actually learn something about prevention before you start spouting off about what makes sense to do, try doing a little background reading (try page 12 for “targeting risks”, not specifically geared towards pregnancy, but it’s general prevention theory nonetheless): http://download.ncadi.samhsa.gov/prevline/pdfs/FocusOn_Layout_OPT.pdf
lea322
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 01:46 pm: [report]
@MuchoMacho: Telling kids that things will be harder if they do or don’t do something is great. But, as with most things in life, experience is the best teacher. You can tell someone something all you want, but that’s not necessarily going to be as effective as a program with tangible, concrete benefits. I don’t think any teen in America is under the impression that their life wouldn’t become more difficult with a child. I also don’t think most teens believe they’ll be the ones getting pregnant/getting someone pregnant. Having a program that rewards NOT getting pregnant is a daily/weekly reminder of their goals and helps them to stay motivated.
EastCoastMale
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 01:47 pm: [report]
joyy
It is obvious that someone in this post touched a nerve with you by the way your response is worded. I don’t understand where the tone of your post is coming from after reading all the other posts.
C.Munro
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 01:48 pm: [report]
I agree entirely with this. However, I don’t see this program as doing any harm for the time being.
Oh, and when I was in high school even the nerds were having plenty of sex. Maybe they were more careful about it than the cool kids, but they were doing it at least as much.
EastCoastMale
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 01:50 pm: [report]
Lea
This is true but do you think that $20 dollars (as an example) that a girl has previously saved up is really going to enter her mind and be a deciding factor if she is in a possibly risky situation with a boy? I think their heart is in the right place but this type of prevention method is misplaced when it comes to money being spent compared to the broad outcome in my opinion.
Riley
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 01:51 pm: [report]
This is a great idea! Start to educate young that you will be rewarded for doing what you are supposed to do. Pay child support? Gold star. Re-think that murder scheme? Solid high-five.
Maybe we can start a government program that pays people for barely contributing, oh yeah.
joyy
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 01:53 pm: [report]
@ECM - what tone? As a former prevention administrator, I’m explaining why it’s sometimes useful to work with a more selectively chosen participant group since the author of the post kind of slammed the idea even though it’s pretty standard. I provided bkg info because it’s relevant and the author here has a tendency to not do much research on the topic at hand - that wasn’t meant to you specifically.
Also, when I wrote that, there was only one comment, and if you think that’s ‘tone’, honey you ain’t seen nothin yet. =P
MuchoMacho
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 02:04 pm: [report]
she has a tone! i think i caught some of it in another post! i mean i agree with encouraging this… but i think back to when i was a kid. i woudl make my bed maybe once a month, and i would get praised for it. i was being praised for fulfilling the least of my obligations. its kind of sad. i am not trying to discourage this problem from being solved… i just think there has to be a better way to solve the problem.
lea322
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 02:15 pm: [report]
@ECM: I totally get your point, and maybe this specific plan isn’t foolproof. I agree with the general idea of it.
retro chic
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 02:17 pm: [report]
Ha! I can see banks now, rolling out 529 college plan piggy banks shaped like a uterus to elementary schools.
Seriously, your points are well-taken, joyy; it’s a big and small picture with many moving parts. All solutions must be considered.
Debbie Downer
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 02:55 pm: [report]
@joyy: You’re right that multiple simultaneous approaches stand a greater chance of success. And your research is sound. And it’s great that you’re passionate about this subject. But you’re also very passive aggressive about it.
Easy there - as a former prevention administrator, I’d expect a softer response to someone not as well-informed as you. Anyway, Jessica didn’t “slam” the idea, she simply raised the twin questions of if this solution was scalable and if it was worthwhile in isolation:
I’m glad to hear your point that the issue of isolation isn’t applicable given the diversified approach favored today, but I think she still has a good point about scalability.
What do you think, joyy? Could we do this with 10 million teenage girls?
joyy
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 03:26 pm: [report]
@DD - I expect people who write about things to do a little background research. I also qualified the “kind of slam”. If the program was effective in preventing pregnancy by increasing protective factors and providing solid, comp. sex ed, that I would absolutely not call that a bandaid solution.
And you could absolutely do that large scale, imagine if organizations were doing selected preg. prevention programs with higher-risk individuals in every school district. Anything is possible, given enough funding and enough bodies.
As for the passive agression, I’ve tried directly pointing out when bloggers are publicizing their opinions on things that they have clearly not bothered to do even a little bit of research about, and the response is just pissy and defensive. So I figured posing it in a way that recalls very well-known concepts and offers information they could learn from would be a better approach.
Debbie Downer
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 03:43 pm: [report]
@joyy - Solid stuff, thanks for bringing this up. But I think Jessica’s “BandAid” point still stands. Let me first quote you:
I would disagree with you here. I would still call the scheme a BandAid solution if it cost significantly more than other methods while adding less value. I think Jessica’s point wasn’t that the incentive scheme is entirely ineffective, but that the money might be better spent on other prevention efforts. The important underlying point is that while you’re right that
but in the real world we have economic limitations on what we can do. Joyy, do you know if there’s any information out there that compares programs like this by their cost-benefit?
And I see your point about the research - it can be frustrating when poorly informed opinions get out there. That being said, I think this particular blog is more of a discussion forum for the airing of opinion rather than a well-researched “article,” so you might think about cutting people a bit of slack. But it’s clearly serving its purpose; thanks again for bringing your expertise!
joyy
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 04:00 pm: [report]
@DD - We didn’t do pregnancy stuff, so I can’t think of any sources offhand for cost-ben comparisons like you mention. We don’t see any numbers from the year before to compare overall results for the school or for that program, so it is impossible to say whether it’s a bandaid solution, but I don’t think the concept is.
That’s my gripe - saying money is better spent on something else if there isn’t even any sort of effort spent trying to figure out what constitutes money well spent on these types of programs.
MuchoMacho
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 04:04 pm: [report]
its a band-aid solution b/c the root of the problem is not being addressed. the root of the problem is the mind-set that young girls dont have to worry about protecting themselves from pregnancies. this is what i was talking about. all youre teaching them is that if they fulfill the least of their obligations, theyll be rewarded. thats not what real life is like.
Debbie Downer
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 04:15 pm: [report]
@DD - No, I don’t think the concept is bad either. And you’re absolutely right that figuring out what “money well spent” means is tough, especially since the “diversified attack” approach makes it difficult to separate the results of different programs.
@MuchoMacho - I agree that it’s a little sad to pay girls to do what they should want to do anyway and it may frustrate raging nerds like Jessica, but I really don’t know what else we can do about this. Sure, we can provide incentives with programs like these, but how, as a matter of policy, do you change a mindset as you suggest? If you’re going for the D.A.R.E./Just Say No approach, i.e. “teaching children to think a certain way,” good luck to you. Have you ever seen one of those T-shirts worn without irony?
retro chic
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 04:32 pm: [report]
I think what’s happening is it’s always easier to denounce something there are no clearcut answers to for such a complex problem. We’d be waiting a long time for a perfect solution that will never come. Esp where money, morality and consequently politics come crashing together. Anywhere is a good place to start, to at least explore. “Won’t Power” gets us nowhere fast in that process.
alifran
wrote on November 5 2009 @ 07:31 pm: [report]
I go there.
bogart4017
wrote on November 6 2009 @ 01:04 pm: [report]
At this point (especially in North Carolina) i say whatever works!