- We present first evidence that relative feedback can improve both the speed and quality of university graduation. Providing students with ongoing relative feedback on accumulated course credits – a measure of progress toward degree completion – increases the likelihood of graduating within one year of the officially scheduled study duration by 3.7 percentage points (an 8 % increase), thus accelerating graduation by 0.15 semesters (0.12 SD). Importantly, this does not lead to a decline in performance: grades improve by 0.063 SD. There are, however, distributional implications that policymakers need to consider: outcomes of students with medium pre-treatment graduation probabilities improve when the feedback informs them of an above-average performance – otherwise, their outcomes deteriorate. Combined with survey evidence, the pattern of results suggests that learning about own ability is a plausible mechanism.
