Small Cash Payments Help University Students Sleep More and Score Higher

The participants were undergraduates at the University of Pittsburgh, with an average age of 19. Those who received the payments — around five dollars, or approximately £3.76, per qualifying instance — slept an average of 19 more minutes per school night than students who received nothing.

That additional rest was enough to push the rewarded students past the seven-hour threshold, considered an optimal amount, on 26% more nights than their unrewarded peers.

The academic impact was also measurable. Rewarded students saw their grade point average — a scale on which an A equals 4 and a B equals 3 — rise by an average of 0.08 points. The improvement was even more pronounced among first-year students.

Trackers alone had little effect

Students in the study were also given sleep trackers that provided bedtime reminders and morning feedback. However, without the financial incentive attached, those devices had little measurable effect on sleep duration.

Some of the benefits outlasted the payments themselves. In the weeks after the monetary incentive ended, students still slept an average of eight additional minutes per night, and their grades remained higher through the following semester.

Mixed public reaction

Reaction from readers online was mixed in tone. One comment beneath a MailOnline article on the study read: "Great preparation for the UK benefits life." A reader responding to a similar piece in the Times wrote: "Great training for the next generation — get paid $ for doing nothing."