A solution to the spread of Covid 19 in Colleges — Article analysis

Financial Rewards for College Students Could Help Curb the Pandemic — By Seema Jayachandran

• Dec. 29, 2020

Within the article, Jayachandran puts forward the argument that in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus, with the dangerous winter ahead, paying college students to test negative could be extremely beneficial, if carried out in the correct way.

Many colleges students do already understand the importance of social distancing, however, incentivising the students to always keep to them, would not only prevent the more reckless students from risking the spread of covid-19 but would also be financially beneficial to colleges in the long term. This is because it would avoid the major losses if a major outbreak occurred.

However, the incentives for testing negative must be carried out in the most effective way, which in my opinion, would consist of students only getting paid after the whole term, or at least half a term, and be exempt from any rewards, having tested positive once. If, for instance, the more impatient students received $40 every week they tested negative, then they would be less careful to continue their behaviour, due to already having received some sort of reward. Furthermore, a study carried out by the economists Shilpa Aggarwal (Indian School of Business), Rebecca Dizon-Ross (University of Chicago) and Ariel Zucker (Berkeley) illustrated how incentivising for the long term, was more beneficial. The study allowed diabetic adults to choose either the first or second contract. The first consisted of the adults getting a reward for walking 10,000 steps each day, and the second gave them a reward for walking 10,000 steps a day, 5 times a week. The results showed that the second contract was more effective, especially for the more impatient people. This is most likely due to the first contracting supplying short-term satisfaction, meaning the adults were less likely to be as incentivised on the 4th day, for instance, as they already had some sort of utility, from the 3 rewards they had earnt earlier. Consequently, similarly constructed incentives for college students would have to take place.

However, there is the risk that these incentives could cause a decrease in students’ motivation, to work, act altruistically and exercise, although, under the current, dangerous circumstances, many things must be tried to keep cases down until the vaccine is supplied.

Therefore, creating incentives for college students could be an effective way of preventing the spread of covid-19, also benefitting colleges financially in the long term. Furthermore, the reward system would also lessen the suffering for many of these individuals, allowing some sort of positive to come from the bitter winter ahead.