"Motivating Students With Cash-For-Grades Incentive"

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/world/middleeast/21iht-educLede21.html?pagewanted=1&ref=education

Motivating students seems to be a common frustration among teachers. How exactly do you get a student who doesn't care about school to care about getting good grades? When I first saw this, I thought, "An A=$$$," and wondered where all that money would come from. Our country is making education cuts as it is, so how are we going to afford to PAY students? In the United States now students are rewarded with scholarships to college for good grades. This fails to cover all exceptional students however, and straight up cash payments have been proposed. Say there was an endless pool of cash, would this even work? Consider the following video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc  ...it says that money motivators don't work for cognitive thinking. Surprised?
Beyond that, I don't think it would be a good idea to motivate students with money incentives. It would really change the way society worked. Students are reliant on their parents financially, but if students started getting paid, could this reliance reverse?
It's true that students need more motivation these days, but money doesn't seem to be the answer.