Washington D.C., Dec 19, 2007 / 09:47 am
A new study reports that students become less likely to attend religious services while in college than they were in high school, although many of them still grapple with spiritual and ethical issues, USA Today reports.
Alexander and Helen Astin, retired UCLA professors, conducted the multi-year study of the college experience’s influence on spiritual development. Surveying more than 14,000 college students on 136 campuses at the start of their freshman year in 2004 and again at the end of their junior year in 2007, the study indicates that students become more interested in exploring the meaning and purpose of life as they progress through college.
However, students’ religious observance declines. Among incoming freshmen, 43.7 percent said they frequently attend religious services. By the end of their junior year, only 25.4 percent did. Though 20.2 percent of new freshmen said they did not attend services, 37.5 percent of juniors did.
The Astins argue that college education has been neglecting the “inner” development of students, in aspects such as their emotional maturity, self-understanding, and spirituality. "Colleges are considered sort of bastions of secularism," Alexander Astin says. The findings suggest that "we have every reason to believe that the colleges are actually fostering some of these changes."