In seeking to expand research on the actual effects of diversity on college students, this study investigated whether various multi-cultural and feminism-related variables at the individual, peer, and institutional levels significantly influenced educational degree ambitions among women. The study used data from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program 1985 Freshman Survey and 1989 Follow-up Survey as well as data gathered through a national 1989-90 Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) Faculty Survey, 1989 HERI Survey of Registrars, and the Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS) of Opening Fall Enrollments. The national survey reached 15,050 students attending 392 four-year colleges and universities. The study used the "Input-Environment-Outcome" methodological framework which controls for students' background characteristics in order to examine the effects of college environmental variables on a particular outcome. This study's dependent variable was a student's graduate degree aspirations. The study found that certain forms of diversity promote increased degree aspirations for white and minority women. It found that, though diversity variables at the institutional or peer level were less important, those that occurred at the individual level were important. These included a sense of feminism, the acts of socializing with someone of a different ethnic group, discussing racial/ethnic issues, and taking a course in women and gender studies. The appendix contains a list of regression variables. (Contains 10 references.) (JB)