An earlier study examined the impact of family income and financial aid on the enrollment decisions of accepted applicants at a single institution of higher learning. A companion analysis was undertaken here to analyze the effect these financial factors had on students' persistence at the same institution during the comparable time period. Surprisingly, financial aid did not have a significant impact on freshmen persistence. However, students from families with greater incomes tended to persist. Academic performance was the overwhelmingly most significant factor affecting a freshmen's decision to continue into the sophomore year, as poor performing students tended to drop out.The impact of financial factors on student persistence remains a critical issue for many colleges and universities in the United States. This issue exists because attrition or dropout rates remain at unacceptable levels-for students, families, elected representatives, the media, employers, and institutions of higher learning. In fact, research indicates that attrition rates range from 10 percent to 80 percent

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The Wal-Mart company, the world's largest retailer and second-largest corporation, is a dominant US business. This study investigates whether there are significant long-run relationships between the business of Wal-Mart and the overall US economy as measured by an array of traditional macro-level variables. Cointegration analysis reveals that Wal-Mart sales generally move counter to overall economic conditions, dampened in more prosperous economic periods and buoyed in more sluggish economic environments. Consequently, trends in Wal-Mart sales may serve as a rather non-traditional contrarian economic bellwether. Eastern Economic Journal (2009) 35, 297–308. doi:10.1057/eej.2008.19