Every year many school-leavers are encounter with the decision about the study choice. An increasing number of prospective students (applicants) in higher education propose new research directions for the scholars. Researchers (Soutar and Turner, 2002; Price, 2003; Drewes and Michael, 2006; Germeijs, Verschueren 2007; Wong, Liu 2010; Stehlik, 2010) have analysed the rationale for school-leavers’ choice, readiness to make decisions about their life-long career, the way school-leavers choose particular study programmes. The researchers’ results, however, do not provide answers to the relevant questions in the context of choosing a study programmes: to what extent are the school leavers’ decisions rational? How educational factors liberate (enable) the young individual to choose the further life path? Thus, the aim of this paper is to reveal the educational factors that influence the school-leavers’ rational decision to successfully enrol in higher education.

The major conceptual statements at the background of this research are the following: 1) the factors influencing school-leavers’ decisions in choosing studies are considered from the point of view of the influence made by multi-faceted environment (the model by Bronfenbrenner, 1977); 2) Model of study choice is based on the idea of Hossler, Schmit and Vesper (1999) that a school-leavers maximize their decision utility (most often using the assessment of alternatives).

The first part of the paper provides an overview of the essence in decision-making. It presents the review of work carried out by different researchers (Ancheh, 2006; Cubillo, Sánchez and Cerviño, 2006; Bowden and Doughney, 2011). The decision making in selecting studies was analysed from the three perspectives: sociological, psychological, and economic. As a result the model of school-leavers’ choice of studies is presented.

The second part of the paper, drawing on the analysis of research literature, focuses on the factors determining school-leavers’ decisions in choosing higher education studies. On the basis of Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) model, four groups of factors influencing a school-leaver are distinguished: educational, informational, social, and other factors.

The third part of the paper presents methodology of empirical research. The indicators of the questionnaire were grounded and adopted from theoretical background which consists of different researchers’ studies from the United States, European, Australia and Lithuanian countries. It was emphasized the specific context of a Lithuanian school-leavers’ study choice in higher education.

The theoretical findings and empirical research results are discussed in the fourth part of the paper.

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