Despite steady growth in enrollment and several external shocks to the US higher-education system, the college-going decisions of high-school graduates in 1980 depended on their social, academic, and financial attributes much as they did in 1972. Analyses of two large, national, longitudinal surveys underlie this finding. The finding implies that aggregate patterns among traditional students' decisions about higher education are, like the social fabric, remarkably resistant to modest changes in the social-policy environment, even though such changes may have dramatic effects on financial and social equity.