This report provides financial aid administrators and other interested researchers with an overview and the rationale of the College Investment Decision Study while also placing it in perspective in relation to the objectives and orientations of other recent major microeconomic surveys. A brief description is given of each of the six other surveys, and key characteristics of the respondents in all surveys are compared to the relevant characteristics of the U.S. population as given by the U.S. Census data. Comparisons are presented for family income, race, parents' educational level, sex, and type of institution attended. (Author)