The effects of university education in economics on students' conceptions of economic aspects of their everyday life were studied. A random sample of 15 beginninq students at the University of Goteborg, Sweden, were interviewed before and after the course. Ten questions were asked that were taken from the students' everyday life and brought out basic economic concepts (e.g., the concept of price, the function of money, elasticity of price, and devaluation). It was found that the students' conception of each principle, before as well as after their studies in economics, could be described in terms of a limited number of categories, denoting qualitatively different ways of comprehending the particular principle or concept. Even if identical categories were found before and after, there was a certain difference in the distribution of subjects over these categories. The difference can be regarded as a measure of the effects of education. There was a marked difference between the answers given before and after studying economics, but this difference in many cases was restricted to the word level (i.e., the students tended to change their vocabulary even if they exhibited the same basic conception of the principles). (SW)