CHAPTER I The Entering College Student—Background and Characteristics*

No PREVIOUS time in educational history has felt so much concern about the students who attend institutions of higher education, nor has there ever been so great a need simply to count the number entering different institutions and programs. Inadequacy of facilities, and often of faculty, is a continual concern, but increasingly large numbers of students at the college level since the second world war has intensified old and new prob-lems of staff, educational program, and physical plant and equipment. In the last decade the questions, "Who should go to college? " and "Where should they g o? " have for the first time become matters of widespread con-cern and debate. Little research has brought a theoretical and experimental approach to the problems of selection, retention, and achievement. Institutions which are pressed for decisions regarding new policies and procedures on enroll-ment will as yet find little evidence to serve as a basis for making such decisions. The findings from surveys and studies to be reviewed her