<p>
[quote]
University of Texas at Austin researchers found four-year college students and college graduates are the least likely to curb church attendance, to say religion is less important in their lives or to completely disassociate from religion. The researchers found young adults who don't pursue a college degree are the most likely to abandon their faith.</p>
<p>"Many people assume college is public enemy No. 1 for religion," Mark Regnerus, assistant professor of sociology, said. "But we found young adults who don't experience college are far more likely to turn away from religion."</p>
<p>Regnerus said the evolution of campus culture might explain the surprising results; as more universities shift attention and resources from liberal arts to professional programs, students are increasingly sheltered from philosophical questions or debates that challenge their beliefs.
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<p>Interesting. I was always one of those people who thought college grads would be less religious. Thoughts?</p>
<p>Maybe not religious after leaving college, but I'm guessing things change after having kids. All my friends' parents (mostly moms) got really nuts over religion and making sure their kids had a lot of it. We kind of had this big divide with the religious zealots -- it was a social club for the stay at home moms. Not my mom, she stayed cool, but she said the second religious "wave" was menopause and manopause!</p>
<p>I'm going to list possible reasons because I'm feeling lazy tonight (you'll see every post of mine tonight has been in #'d format...):</p>
<p>In no particular order (and some of these are pretty weak)...
1. It is easy for religious college students to keep with religion due to the number of religious student organizations, churches, and services on most campuses.
2. Moderately religious students may explore religion deeper in college as a social and stress outlet. They may see friends bonding over religion.
3. College students are likely to be more thoughtful than non-College students, including in matters of religion (and looking for answers to the "big questions")
4. Students in college are more likely to come from well-off homes that perhaps value faith or the community aspect of church. Students not in college may come from a larger variety of perhaps challenging backgrounds that left little time or room for regular religious teaching.
5. Kids from all those Catholic private schools tend to go to college more than the general population and may continue practicing in college.
6. College students in a new environment are often searching for a clique of students, and church is an easy way to find friends. Students not in college can more easily stay with their friends from high school.</p>
<p>I was good friends with a surprising number of people who became ministers or priests, but agree that having children seemed to be the turning point for a number of my classmates who didn't seem religious at all in college.</p>
<p>Also, to add to corranged's list, lots of colleges ARE religious institutions. I'll throw out the hypothesis that kids entering college are more religous than those not entering college. At mainstream colleges, the percentage is probably at or a little lower than the general population, but at religious colleges (not necessarily Notre Dame, but yes Oral Roberts, or Azusa Pacific, or Yeshiva) the percentage is going to be close to 100%, and that may be enough to skew the average for the overall population of college-goers.</p>
<p>My son's campus hosts several very popular faith based social organizations. He started attending one week night thing because of the free food and great music and because a good friend was going. He never was very interested in attending church at home, but he now enthusiastically goes to these "Christian crusade" events, and has made a lot of friends. So for him, it starts out as a social thing, but who knows where it will lead...</p>
<p>My D got involved with a social religious group in HS and it was great at first. But soon enough she realized that the price was too high because she couldn't keep going deeper and deeper into the 'faith' part with a good conscious. Now in college she is apathetic and purposely stays away from the religious social groups because she knows it will just end badly. Again.</p>
<p>When we dropped off our eldest at college in 2001, it was a few weeks before 9/11. Already, the top admissions director there (an LAC), talking to parents at orientation, said they noticed students making more frequent inquiries about church and synagogue opportunities, student religious organizations. He simply noted it as something new about very recent cohorts of all the applications he reads yearly.</p>
<p>Then, when 9/11 hit, there was an observation that students, already in closer touch with parents than a generation before them (through emails, cells, etc.), increased their contacts home. That was an anecdotal observation, not a scientific study. So that's consistent, I suppose, with keeping close to values and sensitivities taught at home, rather than going into deep dark rebellion, as we did in the '60's and '70's.</p>
<p>Others begin to explore on campus. Note that Harvard recently added Religion (the study of it, not the practice of it) to its Core Academic Understandings, or similar name, something basic that an educated person should know about what motivates so many on the planet. </p>
<p>It doesn't surprise me that, at a time when kids are curious, expanding their worlds, growing in so many ways that they'd also either continue or newly seek out religious expressions. I say that because I think of religion as something that expands. rather than constricts, one's feeling for the world; liberating rather than binding. Others disagree,of course, but for those who enjoy it, that's consistent with college life. </p>
<p>Not to mention the free cookies after the services.</p>
<p>Personally, I entered college as someone who, for year, had been involved in the practice of religion only the bare minimum to avoid conflict with my mother. (That was a pretty bare minimum, since my father is practically allergic to religion and couldn't sit through a service then without cracking jokes, using funny voices, etc. -- 12-year-old boy stuff.) In college, for the first time, I encountered people whose religious practice was grounded in intellect as well as faith, and whose intellects I respected. For a while, my level of religious engagement increased significantly. Then it dropped to near 0 again for several years. But when I was ready to re-engage with it, the college experience was very important, because it gave me a model for the kind of religious community I wanted to join.</p>
<p>^^good post, JHS, and indicates what religion can mean for very thoughtful people. Your story is of interest because it demonstrates, too, how much students learn from each other during college. Presumably, those who were unwavering in their faith also were stretched to meet people with many questions. </p>
<p>All religious practice is not about thumping a text or engaging in tribal rites. It provokes thought and action. Some of the new campus clergy are also very astute people. It's not your grandma's pastor anymore.</p>
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All religious practice is not about thumping a text or engaging in tribal rites. It provokes thought and action. Some of the new campus ministers, priests and rabbis are also very astute people. It's not your grandma's pastor anymore.
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<p>This comes off as condescending. I'm sure that "your grandma's" generation might be interested in hearing that "text thumping" religious leaders like CS Lewis, Martin Luther, Augustine, Leibniz, and Siddhartha Gautama have now been overshadowed by modern "very astute people."</p>
<p>I agree with Opie- much depends on the study- depending on the way it is done you can manipulate the information without even intending to.
So many ways to look at things- it wasn't that long ago, that wasn't it Bush who used a Springsteen song as an introduction, not realizing that the lyrics slammed his administration?</p>
<p>One of my daughters current roommates at Reed majored in religion , and wrote a thesis on the progressive Muslim movement- she is spiritual and academic but I don't think she follows a particular creed.
However, Reedies are interested in ideas and they read St Augustine along with atheists like Socrates.</p>
<p>The Puget Sound area has one of the highest rates of advanced degrees and bookstores in the country,but one of the lowest rates of people who claim to belong to a church.</p>
<p>Reading is often for information and the more you read, the more you find the shades of grey.</p>
<p>I myself don't belong to a church although I do belong to other community based organizations.
I also find more of the answers to the big questions from scientific study & reading- which can be much more spiritual than listening to pastors expound on those who don't fit into their mold.
Perhaps I am a bumper sticker philosopher
I agree with Ghandis quote
[quote]
I like your Christ.
I do not like your Christians,
They are so unlike your Christ
<p>I have to say from reading this thread, it seems that it's OK to be cerebral about the study of religion and religious thought, but the actual emotional leap of faith type religious activity is not highly regarded.</p>
<p>As an emotive person, but not a Bible thumper, or even regular church goer, I think that that line of thought does a disservice to millions of people from all different faiths that love their church/religion, take it at face value, and do good things with their gifts and their lives. And the millions of people who at one time or another in their lives, whether it's in the face of a deadly illness, or addiction, or loss, have found comfort and strength in faith in and of itself without serious in-depth study or analysis.</p>
<p>I haven't said anything about the intellect of those who choose to belong to a church, however, I don't think that those who opt out, as I have done, are necessarily less moral or community based than those who chose to belong to a church.</p>
<p>Although I have experience great loss & illness in my life, my father dying @ 44, possibly becuase my mother refused to call for help when I was a teen, my daughter being born 10 weeks early when I was 24, just for two, I didn't look for * God in the foxhole*, although I* did *go into the hospital chapel, because it was apparent it would make the pastor feel better, even though I resented that I was doing it to placate someone I didn't even know.</p>
<p>I think there is a lot more pressure by those who think that others who don't belong to a religion * need* to do so, than the reverse, don't you?</p>
<p>If freedom of choice can mean freedom of religion, can't it also mean freedom * from* religion?</p>