It's hard for me to understand how such a small amount could have such a meaningful impact on someone's life. I suppose that says more about me though.

Edit: Dolly _personally handed them the cheque_! I could see that being more of a motivation than the cash itself

Edit 2: I would highly recommend listening to "Dolly Parton's America" - https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/dolly-partons-america

I would venture that most high school students have probably never had $500 in cash in their entire lives, especially those who are at risk of dropping out.

I appreciate the way you phrased this. In my experience, the nature of poverty in Appalachia is alien to many people (the numbers are so low, and the region is so isolated in many ways, there are many aspects of it that are unintuitive and jarring at first glance.)

Since you seem curious about poverty in Appalachia, I thought this bit of data might be interesting:

Sevierville, where Dolly Parton is from, has an average individual income of about $23,000 in 2022–which is actually a significant increase compared to just a few years ago. When you adjust for inflation and consider that high schoolers have relatively lower earning potential, the weight of $500 makes more sense.

Source: https://datacommons.org/place/geoId/4767120

$500 to a high school student can mean a lot. Source: have been a high school student.

I assume the kind of people who join this program probably are far more likely to graduate even before any incentives are given.

Dropouts rarely sign up for anything 'extra' voluntary at school.

To be confirmed, but my understanding is that the general dropout rate went from 30% to 6%, not 6% only for the people which signed up for the program (for whom the dropout rate might be 0-1% for example)

Money is different.

This is really clever.