College Students' Faith Is Not Gone for Good

There is no such thing as total social repression in college – if you want a social life, you can find one somewhere. This is one of the many freedoms permitted by entrance into higher education, and it is one of the main reasons why college freshmen tend to “go crazy” once freed from the wings of their guardians. This separation from past lifestyles causes for some a disconnect from the core factors that built their lives at home – curfews become a thing of the distant past, grades may slide out of grasp, and, most permanently, religious morals are sometimes lost to the more important guidelines of social structures. These are our liberties, and though they sound bad to some they are ours to explore.

That religious practices often take a backseat in the process of self-identification is shaky but, overall, it is a general truth. A seven-year survey conducted by UCLA found that “although religious engagement declines somewhat during college, students’ spiritual qualities grow substantially.” In other words, we use college to find new sources of guidance. Restoration of religious practices in the decades beyond college graduation is not uncommon, according to a 2002 Gallup Poll. But in the meantime there is a gap – a time for newly freed teens to understand the world without the breath of local religion creeping down our necks.

For some time I firmly (albeit narrow-mindedly) believed that the majority of my peers shared my perception of religion; having seen immeasurable tragedies sour the lives of some of the most religious people I know, I spent my high school and early college years unconnected to faith. And I presumed that to be a common experience. To support this idea, a portion of the aforementioned UCLA study found that, in 2005, 52 percent of surveyed students attended religious services frequently the year before entering college. But by their junior year of college these same students showed an attendance rate of 29 percent.   

But there is something to be said about this idea that college students grow in spirituality – not to be confused with dedication to religious institutions – while in school. This point, which many, including Gallup and UCLA, have shown to be an accurate statistic, is what keeps writers and analysts – myself included – from affirmatively dubbing religion as a virtue utterly diminished by university matriculation. Churches and synagogues may be missing an age demographic, but what makes it an opaque topic is the very truth that college students ourselves are unstable in our beliefs. We will come back in time, but we are searching for new tools in the interim.

Yet for some religious figureheads that argument is an inadequate explanation. Demonizing higher education itself, columnist Dennis Prager believes that college intentionally sucks out religious faith, as “the agenda of Western universities is to produce (left-wing) secularists."

By the numbers above, college students beg to differ. Momentarily setting aside that there are still numerous US universities boasting majority right-wing student bodies (as shown by the widespread outreach of the College Republican National Committee), losing faith is a choice that the student makes regardless of institutional forces. In fact, the decision to leave religion behind is often the result of sudden escape from familial pressures and traditions.

This is exactly what makes me cringe when I hear of parents who wish to renew religious beliefs in their young college students who seem to have easily “lost their way.” Perhaps this thought is mine alone, but that so many students wait until they are out from under their parents’ roofs to turn from organized religion ought to be a sign that the faith was not their own in the first place. This continued pressure defeats the purpose of individual freedom, without which society would be flooded with some truthfully tainted and confused post-graduates. (As though we’re not already scared enough.)