Despite steady enrollment growth and external shocks to U.S. higher education system, high school graduates' college-going decisions in 1980, as much as in 1972, depended on their social, academic, and financial attributes. Analyses of two national longitudinal surveys underlie this finding, implying traditional students' college decisions are…

A model of student sociological and economic choice processes in higher education enrollment is described. The model includes choice by preference, exclusion, and evaluation options. Choice tactics are discussed, including academic experience, efficiency, tradeoffs, and agency decisions. Public policy implications are considered. (CM)

The obstacles to aid-and-access research on minority students include: inadequate models of the decision process, heterogeneous subpopulations, and the momentary equality of 1977. Until research yields qualitative knowledge of why similarly situated teenagers make different decisions about college, analysis of minority aid-and-entry decisions will…