According to Sparks (2011),"the cost of college is increasing faster than inflation with the government funding over 19 million student loans....Congress is demanding answers from colleges and universities about the quality of their education and the return on the government's investment"(p. 1). According to Bruffee (1999), the current construct of education does not prepare graduates to interact with other human beings on substantive issues because they are not reacculturated. Bruffee explained, these complaints about the success of student outcome in higher education will persist until universities make changes to view themselves as "institutions of reacculturation" who "foster reacculturation" among students and who revise assumptions about classroom culture (p. xii). Gardner (1986) wrote, the "FYE" is a deliberate "attempt to provide a rite of passage" (p. 266) as well as "help students overcome "buyers' remorse" and instead make a commitment to remain at the institution" (p. 267). Intent to stay is important because administrators realize "it costs more to recruit a student than it does to retain one" (Congos & Schoeps, 1997, ¶ 2).Bruffee (1999) theorized, if freshmen students experience (a) a connected environment, (b) are exposed to boundary discourse, (c) reduced anxiety, (d) a trusting atmosphere, (e) where they can modify their beliefs to fit those of the new knowledge community, and (f) overcome their feelings of uncertainty or ambivalence, the result is "reacculturation" and they will have an increased intent to stay. After researching, developing, and pilot testing an instrument to measure the desired variables, a final causal-comparative study was completed (Frankel & Wallen, 2003) to explore the "reacculturation" and intent to stay of incoming freshmen students both before and after participation in a freshman orientation course to look for relationships that may exist between the variables of "reacculturation" and intent to stay. Results of this study seemed to show that "reacculturation" did not occur for the participants during the course in question. Results from analysis showed no statistical differences from Pre-test to Post-test. A correlation matrix showed statistically significant relationships, however not all significance had predictive value. Bivariate Linear Regression results suggested, of the six variables of "reacculturation," Ambivalence was the best predictor of Intent to Stay. The inverse relationship between Ambivalence and Intent to Stay accounted for over a quarter of the variance in Intent to Stay, indicating that as Ambivalence increased, Intent to Stay decreased. Additionally, a Cronbach's alpha analysis found all item-total correlations in this analysis were greater than 0.75 indicating the instrument is reliable. Many authors have written about college student attrition as related to institutional policy (Astin, 1993; Bean & Metzner, 1985; Bruffee, 1999; Durkheim, 1951; Noel, 1985; Spady, 1970; Tinto, 1975, 1986, 1987; Upcraft, Gardner & Associates, 1989). According to Bruffee (1999), one approach to institutional policy on persistence is to look towards modifying the social and intellectual environment of the institution and generating alternative means for the "reacculturation" of students into the pre-existing social and intellectual culture of the university. Determining the key components of the process of "reacculturation," as this research has done, can be a good place to start for many institutions in restructuring the current social and intellectual integration process, i.e., their freshman orientation courses. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]