In both the stacks of research compiled by education think tanks and in the conversations had around the dining room table by families of aspiring college students, one stumbling block to college enrollment predictably crops up--financial aid. The topics range from avoiding endless, crushing debt to options for part-time jobs. But often the focus…

People tend to assume that the motivations for their behavior--whether choosing a school, buying a car or pursuing a particular career--are readily available to them, waiting to be articulated. But a great deal of new multi-disciplinary research--in psychology, cognition, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology--is suggesting otherwise. In…