As a response to the problems of nontraditional student attrition at two-year and four-year urban colleges, this paper introduces the constructs of career decision-making self-efficacy, perceived stress, and financial difficulty into a model built on the synthesis of Cabrera (1993). A questionnaire was administered to adult nontraditional (age 24 and over) full- and part-time undergraduate students (n=469) at a private urban research university during the fall 1995 semester. Variables included: career decision-making self-efficacy; family encouragement; perceived stress; financial attitudes satisfaction and difficulty; academic integration; social integration; cumulative GPA; institutional commitment; goal commitment and intent to persist; as well as measures of student background. The study found that the variables subsumed within career decision-making self-efficacy had the greatest influence on intent to persist and persistence. (Contains 81 references.) (RH)