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Frances K. Stage and Don Hossler esearch conducted in the past twenty years has examined student persistence in college extensively (Attinasi 1989; Cabrera, Stampen, and Hansen 1990; De Los Santos, Montemayor, and Solis 1980; Bean and Metzner 1985; Nora 1987; Olivas 1986; Pascarella and Terenzini 1977, 1991; Stage 1989; Terenzini and Pascarella 1980; Tinto 1975, 1987, 1988; Tracey and Sedlacek 1987). Throughout the 1980s and 1990s increasingly sophisticated statistical techniques and ethnographic approaches have been more widely used (Pascarella and Terenzini 1983, 1991). Out of that period of study grew assuredness regarding factors that were key in the persistence of many college students, such as relationships with faculty and positive academic and social experiences on campus (Terenzini et al. 1995; Tinto 1987). Additionally, during roughly the same time period but in a separate line of inquiry, researchers turned increasingly sophisticated analytic skills toward explanation of students' decisions to attend and choice of colleges (Carpenter and Fleishman 1987; Chapman 1981; Ekstrom 1985; Hossler, Braxton, and Coopersmith 1989; Litten 1982; McDonough 1997; Ortiz 1986; Paulsen 1990; Solomon and Taubman 1973; Trent and Medsker 1967). In the past decade researchers developed models to explain those decision processes. Some of those models demonstrated overlap with the sociologically based status attainment models (Chapman 1981; Hossler and Gallagher 1987). Studies of college choice employed a number of theoretical