My situation was very similar to yours, Kyuuei, when I was growing up. I grew up with my grandparents, who were retired at the time and made an average of 20-30k a year, 3k of which went towards private education per year. We were just far enough above the financial aid bracket to not qualify for help, but we earned too little, so it REALLY hurt.
My family basically made the following deal with me: You do not have to get a job and earn money (even though we could really use it) if you promise to get good grades and study hard. They even eased up on me and did not expect me to do chores.
The concept was: If you get excellent grades, you will get a very good scholarship to go to university. If you do not, we cannot send you to university. So forget working and just study hard so you can get ahead.
I had so much inner drive, that I often forgot to eat and drink, much less have a life. I was so driven that most people thought I was some kinda crazy IXTJ for a long-ass time. Trust me, when you have that kind of pressure on you, you do not need money. You feel like shit if you get anything less than perfect because you know how much your family is sacrificing to give you all they can.
Of course most people don't grow up under those conditions, so I GUESS they need some kind of external force to push them (especially if they are E's and the force does not come from the circumstances, as in my case).
But I'm hesitant to say that MONEY is the correct answer. I mean, isn't our society and aren't our kids sooooo focused on materialism? Shouldn't this be a kind of 'survival of the fittest' where the brightest and the most capable succeed?
I'm not sure if money should fit into the equation. For people that have a lot of money, this point is moot because they don't even need the money. For people without money, the point is moot because they don't have the money.
So we're basically talking about - excuse me for the crass term - yuppie and upper-middle class to middle-class parents who wonder how to get kids off their asses and work. Pfft...I don't know. I had thought that by that time you would have taught your children the values of hard work and studying WITHOUT financial compensation just by your OWN good example. Heh.
On the other hand, I have no kids, and I was raised very *very* traditionally (since my grandparents raised me), so I have some wacked-out and old-fashioned views regarding raising kids, I guess. That's why I'm anxious about having them because I damned well have no idea how someone can do it in this day and age. So I could very well be talking out my ass, farting, and saying crap.
*shrugs* I don't know. It just doesn't sit well with me.