This study was undertaken with the belief that financial need is not an isolated barrier to postsecondary education and that it is frequently accompanied by distinct motivational, academic, and geographic factors. The distribution of Alabama's poverty on a county level is shown and evaluated. It is noted that all of the countries with a predominantly black population in 1970 are included among those with the highest degree of poverty. The data show that the impact of poverty in Alabama is severe, with an inordinate number of persons and families in every county impoverished. Increasing cost of living and decreased purchasing power of the dollar intensify the hardship. Lack of educational training may be the most crippling disadvantage of poverty, since income, wages, occupation, and employment are influenced by educational attainment. Social norms and values, academic procedures, and geographic variables can produce severe obstacles to postsecondary education. Postsecondary education must develop a flexibility to meet the financial, geographic, motivational, and academic needs of new students, as well as a social commitment exercised in a way that benefits the total community. (Author/LBH)