College scholarships, poverty, signaling and employment opportunities: evidence from a field experiment

We study the effect of the signal sent by a college scholarship in a labor market where disadvantaged groups are discriminated against. Using a correspondence audit-study we find that including information of being a scholarship recipient in a resume increases the likelihood of getting a callback for a job interview by 20%. However, the effects are much smaller for resume characteristics less common among the poor. We show that this is consistent with the scholarship also sending a negative signal to employers and helps explain why actual beneficiaries almost never mention the scholarship in their resumes.