While studies have examined the relationship between financial aid and college access, few have evaluated the relationship between financial aid and academic success. Factors that are associated with financial need, such as being low income, are also associated with a lack of academic success, making it difficult to isolate the effect of additional financial aid on student achievement. MDRC's Opening Doors study of performance-based scholarships in Louisiana is one of a handful of studies that was able to measure the effect of additional aid on academic success. As part of the study, two colleges implemented a performance-based scholarship program for low-income parents, providing students with scholarships of up to $1,000 for each of two semesters (up to $2,000 per student in total), paid in increments based on each student's success in meeting key benchmarks. An evaluation of the intervention showed that the scholarship had a number of positive effects for students. Building on the promising findings from the Louisiana study, MDRC launched the Performance-Based Scholarship (PBS) Demonstration in four states in 2008. The goal of the PBS Demonstration is to evaluate whether performance-based scholarships are an effective way to improve persistence among low-income college students in different geographical locations with different amounts of monies over different durations. This brief provides an introduction to the PBS project and describes the program designs of the sites currently participating in the demonstration. (Contains 2 tables and 9 notes.)