To examine what motivates mature people to begin a full-time educational program, a study was made of students at the Institute of Continuing Education (Londonderry, Northern Ireland), which runs a one-year, full-time, academically intense program in liberal studies for mature students with or without formal educational qualifications. The study was conducted along the lines of a 1950s study by J. Blumler of students at Ruskin College (Oxford, England) and had similar findings. Interviews of twenty students were conducted, from which a questionnaire was developed which was administered to forty-one students. The Londonderry study detected three relatively independent components among the many reasons cited for application to the program: (1) a vocational or instrumental component, expressed as a desire for a formal qualification and university entrance; (2) a social relevence component, expressed as a desire for a job which is both satisfying and serves others; and (3) an intellectual/cultural component, expressed as a desire to complete education, to do some serious study, and to regain or build self-confidence. (Tables of data, notes, and references are included.) (LMS)