Does College Drive Young People Away From Church?

(ANALYSIS) I’m a college professor, but I’m also a pastor in the American Baptist Church. I’ve lived this dual life for nearly a decade now and lots of concerned parents feel comfortable asking me a question that has been on their minds: How do I ensure that my college student comes back home with the same faith in which they were raised? 

The assumption here is based on an old trope about academia. A lecture hall full of first year college students are bombarded with a number of troubling ideas about Christianity by a gray haired philosophy professor wearing a suit jacket with elbow pads and Birkenstock sandals. Those freshmen will come home espousing the virtues of Marxism and advocating for the viewpoint of Nietzche.

In reality, the data doesn’t tell a story that is nearly that in clear. In fact, in some ways young people who do experience at least some college level study are less likely to identify as religiously unaffiliated and more likely to attend church than those who stopped with a high school diploma.

When it comes to belief about God, large segments of young people express an unshakable belief in the Divine. Two thirds of young people who never went to college believe in God without a doubt or believe in God despite their doubts. It’s 57% of those who have gone to college. On the other end of the spectrum of belief, 6.5% of young people who stopped at high school embrace an atheist position, another 7.4% could be classified as agnostics. For those who do earn college credits, it’s slightly higher: 6.6% hold atheistic beliefs, and nearly 12% could be described as agnostics.

But when the unit of measurement is shifted from religious belief to religious behavior (attending church services) or religious affiliation, the gap between those who attend college and those who do not is incredibly small.

In fact, the share of young people who identify as “nones” is statistically indistinguishable when the sample is broken down into those who have earned college credits and those who have not. It is notable that the two trend lines have crossed in recent years, but it’s too early to know if the trajectory of those lines will continue far into the future.

READ: Unconventional Churches Draw Young Believers to Worship in Odd Places

When it comes to church attendance, the data is clear: college students were more likely to attend services at least sometimes than young people who never went to college. In the late 1980’s, the gap between the two groups was more than 10 percentage points. In 2018, that gap has narrowed significantly with 40% of those with a high school diploma never attending church, compared to 35% of those who have some college experience.

But, if the religious affiliation question is posed differently and respondents are given the option to identify as an atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular some very stark differences emerge when comparing the two groups of young people.

Among 18-25 year olds who have taken college courses, nearly half identify as Protestant or Catholic - it’s just 35% of those who ended their education at high school. However, the data does indicate that college educated young people are slightly more likely to embrace the atheist or agnostic moniker. But, a huge difference emerges when it comes to those who chose the nothing in particular option.

Over one third of all young people between the ages of 18-25 who never attended college describe their religion as nothing in particular, which is 10 points higher than the share who identified as Protestants and 20 points more than those who identified as Catholics. 

For those who have taken college courses, only one in five identify as nothing in particular which is right in line with the national average among all groups. In total 47.5% of young people with a high school diploma identify as a none - it’s 37.8% of those who are in college or have taken college coursework.

The belief, held by many, that education drives people away from religion is turned on its head by these results. The trope that a cunning college professor can turn people of faith into militant atheists finds little support here. Instead, a more depressing picture emerges of a generation of young people who are disconnected, unmoored, and left behind. 

These young people who did not decide to further their education are islands in the economic and social world of 21st century America. They stand as an excellent mission field for people of faith to get them to return to a religious community, but they stand as a tremendous problem for elected officials and public policy experts. Finding ways to create bridges to this subset of the population will be a key part of rebuilding social capital in the United States and trying to keep us unified in an increasingly polarized and isolated climate.

Ryan Burge is an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, a pastor in the American Baptist Church and the co-founder and frequent contributor to Religion in Public, a forum for scholars of religion and politics to make their work accessible to a more general audience. His research focuses on the intersection of religiosity and political behavior, especially in the U.S. Follow him on Twitter at @ryanburge.