| Summary: | The principal purposes of this national longitudinal study of the higher education system in the United States are to describe the characteristics of new college freshmen and to explore the effects of college on students. For each wave of this survey, each student completes a questionnaire during freshman orientation or registration that asks for information on academic skills and preparation, high school activities and experiences, educational and career plans, majors and careers, student values, and financing college. Other questions elicit demographic information, including sex, age, parental education and occupation, household income, race, religious preference, and state of birth. Specific questions asked of respondents in the 1974 survey included students' average grades, year of graduation, place of residence during school year, total expenses, and total income during the previous year. Respondents were also asked to indicate, based on a list of traits, how they compared with average students their own age. Other questions involved students' long-term choice of occupations, their opinions on the importance of various individuals and events in their decision to enroll in college, assessments of achieving certain goals during their college years, and general attitudes about faculty and other students.
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