One issue that has received little attention is how students factor distance from home into their decisions about college. In this study, we used data from the Education Longitudinal Survey of 2002 (ELS:02) to examine the distances between a student's home and the colleges to which they applied, and how far from home they enrolled. We focused on…

Questionnaire responses from 782 undergraduates suggest that the perception of educational benefits seemed to be the most critical variable in predicting student satisfaction. Other variables examined were age, student level, grade, and satisfaction with college experience. (Author/LB)

The extent to which informal contact socializes students by influencing their educational aspiration level in a commuter setting was investigated using a longitudinal data collection with the student as unit of analysis. Significant interactions between informal faculty-student contact and race were found. (Author/MLW)

Data were gathered from nontraditional (commuter, part-time) freshmen at a midwestern urban university. Dropout was a function of grade point average and credit hours enrolled, as well as the utility of education for future employment, satisfaction with the student role, opportunity to transfer, and age affecting dropout through intent to leave.…