Is it true that going to college can be hazardous to your faith? That’s the popular belief among many Christians. But a new study published in June by the University of Texas at Austin (Losing My Religion: The Social Sources of Religious Decline in Early Adulthood) suggests that college attendance may actually be better for the religious faith of young adults than the alternatives.

The study looks at three measures of faith: religious service attendance, personal importance of religion, and disaffiliation from religion. It measures those three elements in teens and young adults and looks for changes between the two age groups.

The authors found that almost 63% of evangelical protestant young adults had a decline in religious service attendance when compared to their teen years, but less than 20% said religion was any less important to them, and only about 17% ditched their faith altogether.

Yes, church attendance dropped significantly, but 80% of young adults said their faith was as important to them as when they were teens.

Black protestants and Jews were the least likely to turn away from faith altogether. Catholics had the biggest decline in attendance at services, with over 76% going less frequently.

Factors common to young adult living — staying out late with friends, building a new career — might be the reason for a decline in church attendance.

When the authors factored in college enrollment, something odd happened. Among those not attending college, church service attendance declined 76% and 20% turned away from faith altogether. Among college graduates, only 59% attended services less frequently and only 15% turned away from their faith.

The authors suggest a possible explanation: modern secular colleges are more interested in teaching young people how to earn a living than in challenging their core beliefs.

The authors note that “in the mid-1960s more than 80 percent of college freshman listed ‘developing a meaningful philosophy of life’ as an essential or very important goal, [whereas] by 1996 that number had dwindled to just 42 percent.” Today, “being well-off financially” is a much greater concern to college students, which means “they may be less prone to grapple with issues central to their religious faith — or to enroll in the types of classes that might challenge that faith.”

One other important finding: The two most faith-corrosive behaviors in young adults were extramarital sexual activity and drug use. Young adults living together outside of marriage experienced more damage to their faith practices than any other category, while young adults who remained sexually chaste until marriage had the best record for retaining their faith.

The authors made this excellent observation about the role parents have in building a durable faith in their children:

“If parents do not actively affirm and transmit the oral and written traditions of a religion, their failure to ‘teach the language’ results in young adults who cannot ‘speak the language’ and who are at elevated risk of shedding their religious value system altogether.”

Thanks to Mere Orthodoxy for this link.