Introduction: Evaluative data on performance and school drop-out in the context of the Spanish university justify its current phase of structural, organizational and curricular changes currently underway here. A priority objective is to study motivation problems in university students, at the root of many of these problems. However, the complexity of the phenomen, together with limitations of the available psychological models, underscore the need for more research, particularly applied to this area. Method: Students who make up our sample turn to the Counseling Center (CC) at their own initiative. In order for us to evaluate and respond to their demands, they complete a school psychology information protocol where we collect demographic, psychological, academia and vocational-professional data, to be presented in this study. Results: Results show percentages and proportions of students with motivation problems that underlie the help-seeking behavior of counseling services. Other results complete and corroborate the potential of some current models for improving the strength and usefulness of future interventions. Discussion: The volativity of the human motivation phenomenon is perhaps due to limitations of available theoretical models to date. Thus we may need to continue measuring and collecting data in the cognitive and affective realm as codeterminants of motivational level in students. Data presented in this study allow us to validate the usefulness of one model analyzed, and to recommend its potential for future intervention designs. (Contains 2 footnotes, 1 figure and 5 tables.)