Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) [United States]: Freshman Survey, 1979

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 1979 survey included type of high school, total of expenses the students expected to receive from different sources, questions regarding the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant (BEOG) and Guaranteed Student Loan (GSL), students' life patterns, and the best estimate of students' parents' income during the past year.