Researchers used cross-sectional survey research to reexamine the problem of adult persistence within undergraduate degree programs. They identified a variable--perceived stress--that permitted a richer explanation of the process of student persistence. A model was presented that examined the attitudinal and behavioral impacts of unmet need, financial aid, financial satisfaction, financial difficulty, and academic performance while maintaining a loosely coupled conceptual kinship to the integrated model of student persistence of Sandler (1999). Empirical considerations of St. John, et al. (1994, 2000) and Sandler were explored to produce an innovative path analysis, thereby investigating nonrecursive and reciprocal interactions that were new to the literature. The hypotheses and effects examined explicated adult student decision-making constraints, attitudes, choices, and behavior allied to the theory of planned behavior of Ajzen that bore an empirical impact and other outcomes within the model. Unmet need was empirically shown to be illustrative of nontraditional students' decision making, having an orthogonal impact, as a direct effect, on financial aid, financial satisfaction, and persistence borne by learners continuing their studies for a degree. Findings indicated perceived stress and cumulative grade point average had the widest range of influence on endogenous variables. (Contains 42 references.) (YLB)