A University professor and graduate student have concluded that students who attend college are more likely to maintain religious beliefs than those who choose not to attend higher education.
A paper written by assistant sociology professor Mark Regnerus and sociology graduate student Jeremy Uecker analyzed the idea that college life influences religious faith and practice, based on the findings from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
"We wanted to know if the college experience had a secularizing effect," Regnerus said.
The survey tracks 15,000 students randomly selected from high schools across the country and monitors their religious devotion post-high school.
In general, the survey has shown that "the young-adult years of many Americans are marked by a clear decline in outward religious expression, which is popularly thought to hit bottom during - and perhaps because of - the college experience."
Surprisingly enough though, college graduates reported a 59.2-percent decline in religious service attendance compared to a 76.2-percent decline among those who chose not to attend college, according to the report. Regnerus and Uecker explain that the structure of college life reinforces and provides for a more religion-friendly environment. Through student organizations and various network associations, college students live in an atmosphere that allows them to maintain their religious beliefs.
"There is, in essence, a lack of structure for those students who don't go to college," said Uecker.
Yet it's not surprising to me...as a college student in the 1980s it was my experience that in general there was a strong interest in religion. It appears that in the world of university culture, where change is sometime the only constant, religion is holding its own.
Another story attributed the interest in religion in college as being due to a shift away from liberal arts education to professional programs. However, I recall many of my peers studying graduate philosophy as being active in church. Some even went on to attain national recognition in their denominations.
I agree, and remember when I attended college in the 1970's, the first thing that my Catholic friends and I did was to check out the Mass in the campus chapel. I went once or twice and was horrified. Mass consisted of sitting on the floor passing around a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine. Needless to say I did not go back to Mass there the entire time I was a student. Nor was I surprised when it was later discovered that the priest had a baby with a nun. Groovy! By the way, many friends thought that was not "liberal enough" and went to the Unitarian, um, "services."
I trust that times have changed in the campus ministries today, flip flops and guitar masses albeit!
Posted by: MMajor Fan | June 11, 2007 at 03:00 PM