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College kids more likely to hold on to their religion

Since entering academia in the late 1980s, I’ve heard a steady drumbeat of accusations that college professors indoctrinate, or try to anyway, their students with leftist, secular propaganda.

There’s no doubt that there is a higher percentage of liberals and leftists in academia than in the US population at large, though that percentage varies a great deal across displines and types of colleges. For example, more sociologists are on the left than economists, and there’s a higher percentage of conservatives in community colleges than in small liberal arts colleges.

Still, I’ve always wondered why, if academia is under the thumb of a leftist hegemony, colleges still have produced generation after generation of conservatives and Republicans. It may just be that students aren’t as pliant as the accusation makes them out to be, and it may just be that professors spend their time teaching the content and methods of their field rather than trying to brainwash their students.

It also appears that professors aren’t beating religion out of their students. Inside Higher Ed shares a report today that

Whether the source is God and Man at Yale or any number of more recent studies, the conflict between a college education and the faith that students bring to campus (secular campuses at least) is well accepted. The more you pursue a higher education, the more likely you are to abandon your faith — at least that’s what conventional wisdom holds.

“Actually we’ve just been wrong about this for quite a while,” said Mark D. Regnerus, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and one of the authors of a new study that suggests students who attend and graduate from college are more likely than others to hold on to their faith.

According to a survey of young adults, 76% of those who never attended college reported a decline in attending church services, compared to 59% of those with a bachelor’s degree or higher. 24% of those without any college reported a decline in the importance of religion, compared to 15% of those with a college degree.

The flip side of this story is that those are pretty big declines in church attendance, though I wonder how many will start attending again if they settle down, get married, have kids.

Written by Ayschlay

University Update linked with College kids more likely to hold on to their religion

7 Responses to “College kids more likely to hold on to their religion”

  1. University Update Says:

    June 14th, 2007 at 10:16 am
    Visit University Update

    College kids more likely to hold on to their religion

  2. ~J~ Says:

    June 14th, 2007 at 11:11 am
    Visit ~J~

    People can’t be indoctrinated unless they already doubt what they believe.

    Look at Senator Clinton. She was a Goldwater Girl Republican (couldn’t get any more conservative than that back then) and came out of college a dedicated liberal.

    I can tell you my children were raised to be conservatives but have become more tolerant in some views as they got out of college.

    My daughter hardly attended church while in college (if she did at all) but wanted the church wedding and all the trimmings.

    She and her husband still didn’t go to church until their first child was born and they wanted to get into a church that had activities for children.

    They have re-dedicated their lives and are now faithful.

    Now, if they ran with the fast crowd in DC or New York it might be a different story, so I think peer pressure has a lot to do with it too and we are the buckle of the Bible Belt.

  3. Big Mo Says:

    June 14th, 2007 at 11:24 am
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    My personal story (shortened): I was a cultural Catholic until college, where I became a nuclear freeze-type Dukakis liberal. Slowly became conservative in the mid-90s when my true college education began (e.g., the introduction of critical thinking).

  4. Cal Says:

    June 14th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
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    I suppose now you’re a warm cuddly conservative.

  5. Big Mo Says:

    June 14th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
    Visit Big Mo

    warm, yes. Maybe too cuddly around the waist by being on the see-food diet.

    The long version is much more interesting. I can link to it if you want.

  6. ~J~ Says:

    June 14th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
    Visit ~J~

    Go ahead and link to it, Big Mo. It would be an interesting read.

  7. Big Mo Says:

    June 14th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
    Visit Big Mo

    Sure J. But I can’t find the link now :(

    Well, to sum, when I went to college in the late 80s, I fell in with a liberal crowd. Joined the Midwest Nuclear Freeze in all but name, believed everything bad I was told by my friends and professors about Reagan and his team, believed America was a racist, sexist, unjust, militaristic and even evil society that could only be cured by liberalism. Campaigned for Dukakis. In other words, I didn’t think. I merely accepted what I was told. A real skull full of mush.

    Started to change, though, when personal events slapped me in the face. In no particular order, I started listening to Limbaugh, and at first I thought he was obnoxious, but I took him up on his challenge to read and investigate on my own. I used Mizzou’s library for all it was worth and realized that I only had part of the story. Huge eye-opener number one.

    Next, I girl I wanted to date but couldn’t because she was dating a nice chap from India told me about her boyfriend’s roomate: a white guy who literally believed it was his duty/pennance to room with someone of “color” because, as a white guy, he was the “oppressor” and he needed to start making up for what his kind had done to the rest of the world. I KID YOU NOT. That was huge eye-opener number two.

    I started challenging what I was being taught, refusing to accept the “America is over” meme from Marxist professors (seriously — real, avowed Marxists) and liberal profs and TAs who came from the left. And they didn’t like that. Well, the good ones–the Marxists–liked students who challeneged and backed up their theses. Eye opener number three.

    When going through the journalism school, some of the professors, especially on the daily newspaper run by the J school, were only interested in developing your skills in digging up dirt/scandal/trash — and not reporting a good news story. I was told, quote/unquote, “I want dirt.” Many of my fellow students declared their intentions to “change the world,” instead of be good reporters. In other words, activists and not journalists. Eye opener number four.

    Finally, two last straws. Even though I voted for Clinton in ‘92 (he really fooled me with his new Democrat stuff) I was becoming quite conservative. For some strange reason I took a “Peace Studies” course, and that turned out to be a joke, because it was nothing but liberal and Marxist indoctrination, and I really, truly mean that word. And I also wandered over to onee final Nuclear Freeze meeting, but at the end, when they joined hands and sung “We shall overcome,” I knew that I was no longer liberal and would never be again.

    Why? Joining hands and singing is not the answer to ending the threat of nuclear war — not after what Reagan had just done (I didn’t appreciate it while Reagan was actually doing it, but I sure do now).

    So that’s my story. There’s one other component, though. I didn’t truly receive Christ until several years later when I got married, and that’s been a whole different journey.

    Note: I’m not saying that all libs are stupid or unthinking or anything AT ALL like that. This is just my story.