IDENTIFIERS *Return on Investment

This study investigated the reasons full-time, first-year undergraduates gave for choosing to enroll at colleges with higher sticker prices, how they paid their expenses, and the educational experiences associated with attendance at these schools. It also reviews how satisfied they were with their choices, how they rated the educational experience, how they paid for the education, and their first-year persistence. Undergraduates from public colleges with sticker prices below $12,000 a year were used as comparisons, and a third group of undergraduates at public and private institutions with sticker prices below $12,000 was included in the tables of the report, but not in the analyses. The primary data sources was the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:96). Almost all of the students at the higher sticker price schools were traditional in the sense of being single, younger than 24, or financially dependent on their parents. More of the undergraduates at these more expensive schools went to colleg