In an effort to move this section of the forum away from unfounded opinions and empty rhetoric, I have been looking into the articles in scientific journals.
The first article I looked at was "Religion and Higher Education: Current Knowlege and directions for future research" by DAMON MAYRL and FREEDEN OEUR, Department of Sociology, University of California at Berkeley. Some of the findings that this article reports are quite surprising. The abstract of another article in Social Forces Volume 85, Number 4, June 2007 sums up some of the more surprising findings:
Another focus of the Mayrl and Oeur article was the effect of religious affiliation on student acheivement. There are good studies showing a very strong correlation between religious attendance and academic sucess in high school and a strong correlation with GPA in college, however data on religious attendance after entering college is lacking, and there is another study suggesting that this latter positive correlation may be entirely due to the effect of higher acheivements in high school. It should be no surprise that studies show that fundamentalist beliefs can hinder academic achievement, and that excessive religious involvement can have a deletorious effect on academic achievement in college. The conclusion seems to be that this question of the impact of religious involvement upon academic achievement at the college level is an area where more and better research is needed.Many Americans exhibit declining religiosity during early adulthood. There is no consensus about why this occurs, though longstanding assumptions suggest the secularizing effects of higher education, normative deviance and life course factors. We evaluate these effects on decreasing frequency of religious practice, diminished importance of religion and disaffiliation from religion altogether. Results from analyses of the Add Health study indicate that only religious participation suffers substantial declines in young adulthood. Contrary to expectations, emerging adults that avoid college exhibit the most extensive patterns of religious decline, undermining conventional wisdom about the secularizing effect of higher education. Marriage curbs religious decline, while cohabitation, nonmarital sex, drugs and alcohol use each accelerate diminished religiosity – especially religious participation – during early adulthood.
The second half of the paper focuses on suggesting area where further research is needed.
1. Better measures for sprituality and religiousity
2. Connecting studies of adolescents and college students
3. Need to make distinctions between different types of colleges
4. How campus religious activities affect the college environment
The articles final conclusion is as follows:
Religion plays a larger role on colleges and universities than it is often given credit for. Students have extensive religious and spiritual commitments, though for many students they may not be a priority during college. Religious practice declines during the college years, yet religious beliefs appear to be maintained—though exactly what happens to them is a source of considerable debate. Religion appears to exert a positive influence on students’ lives in some respects, though it does not convincingly appear to improve students’ academic performance or emotional well-being. While there has been increased scholarly interest in religion on campus in recent years, the amount of high-quality research remains low relative to the scope and urgency of the debates. Improved methods can help clarify ambiguities in existing research traditions, while new research into the demographic and institutional contexts of student religious engagements would greatly enhance our understanding of the role of religion in the academy.