As a response to the problem of adult-student retention at two-year and four-year urban colleges, a new structural model, "Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy, Perceived Stress, and an Integrated Model of Student Persistence" (Sandler, 1999), has been identified to better explain the integration, finances, behavior, and career development of non-traditional students. The following three subsystems at the core of the integrated model of student persistence are explored: (1) the academic and social feelings adults experience upon being in a learning institution; (2) the relationship engendered between this system and the commitments of personal goal and the institution; and (3) the capacity for academic performance and persistence. Five endogenous variables are found to be embedded in an environmental and social cognitive framework of student decision-making and social adaptation that lead to persistence: academic integration (18 percent), social integration (27 percent), institutional commitment (39 percent), cumulative grade point average (11 percent), and goal commitment (12 percent). The effects of financial satisfaction and goal commitment on the integration subsystem are new to the persistence literature. Policy implications for higher education institutions providing undergraduate degree programs for adults include helping adult students achieve their goals and assisting non-traditional learners with career decision making and planning. (Contains 37 references.) (KC)