{"id":2605757,"date":"2026-05-22T08:19:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T12:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/are-more-people-going-to-church-because-fewer-are-going-to-college\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T08:22:32","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T12:22:32","slug":"are-more-people-going-to-church-because-fewer-are-going-to-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/are-more-people-going-to-church-because-fewer-are-going-to-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Are More People Going To Church Because Fewer Are Going To College?"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fare-more-people-going-to-church-because-fewer-are-going-to-college%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2605757&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Religious affiliation in the U.S.-which had been declining for decades-appears to have stabilized.From 1972 to 2020, the share of Americans identifying as Christian fell while the \u201cnone\u201d category rose, but Pew\u2019s February 2025 Religious Landscape Study (and confirmation by PRRI and the U.S. Religious Census) found that between 2019 and 2024 Christian identity was relatively steady (around 60-64%) and unaffiliation also leveled off.<\/p>\n<p>The article notes several explanations already being discussed: Pew analysts suggest generational differences are narrowing; other researchers argue Americans are increasingly customizing spirituality around <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wisconsin-parents-on-new-social-studies-curriculum-our-children-cannot-escape-leftist-messaging\/\" title=\"Wisconsin Parents On New Social Studies Curriculum: \u2018Our Children Cannot Escape Leftist Messaging\u2019\">personal values<\/a> rather than institutional requirements; and some theorists contend the psychological gap between religious and nonreligious people is less than assumed as many who are unaffiliated still believe in God or spiritual reality.<\/p>\n<p>It then argues that one key factor hasn\u2019t received enough attention: the declining prestige of higher education. The piece claims that universities and professors-historically seen as critics of organized religion-now have a growing \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lawmakers-grill-facebook-over-leaked-internal-research-on-instagrams-harmful-impact-on-teens\/\" title=\"Lawmakers Grill Facebook Over Leaked Internal Research on Instagram\u2019s Harmful Impact on Teens\">image problem<\/a>\u201d due to campus controversies and broader public skepticism, reflected in polls showing concern even among Democrats and liberals. The author suggests that as trust in academia has eroded, some people may be more willing to return to religion, which is still perceived as reinforcing long-standing personal and moral values-making the recent religious leveling feel less coincidental.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>One of the most unexpected cultural developments in the U.S. has been the recent stabilization of religious affiliation. From 1972 until 2020, the percentage of American adults identifying as Christian dropped steadily from 90 percent to 63 percent, while those saying they did not belong to any faith tradition went from 5 percent to 29 percent. But in February of 2025, it suddenly became clear that this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/new-leader-same-leadership-for-afl-cio\/\" title=\"New Leader, Same Leadership For AFL...CIO\">decades-long decline<\/a> had actually been flat for some time.<\/p>\n<p>That was when the Pew Research Center published its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/religion\/2025\/02\/26\/decline-of-christianity-in-the-us-has-slowed-may-have-leveled-off\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">most recent<\/a> Religious Landscape Study, the largest of the foundation\u2019s ongoing surveys. Based on answers from more than 35,000 respondents, Pew had discovered that over the previous five years, from 2019 to 2024, the Christian share of the U.S. population had been \u201crelatively stable, hovering between 60 percent and 64 percent\u201d for both Catholics and Protestants, while the percentage of unaffiliated had also leveled off. (Mainline Protestants continued their decline, but other Protestant denominations balanced them out.)<\/p>\n<p>With the <a href=\"https:\/\/prri.org\/research\/census-2023-american-religion\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Public Religion Research Institute<\/a> (PRRI) and the <a href=\"https:\/\/usreligioncensus.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">U.S. Religious Census<\/a> recently confirming the Pew findings, a number of religious podcasters, social media influencers, and otherwise reliable news outlets have taken to exaggerating the data, declaring a modern Great Awakening, especially among young men. But even a \u201cmere leveling\u201d of religious affiliation is a dramatic enough development for more serious observers to try and explain it.<\/p>\n<p>The reason originally given by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2025\/02\/PR_2025.02.26_religious-landscape-study_report.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Pew\u2019s own analysts<\/a> was that the decreasing strength in religious affiliation from one generation to the next had finally begun to narrow. In other words, while each generation since World War II has been less interested in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/supreme-court-poised-to-deliver-victory-for-school-choice-in-religious-vouchers-case\/\" title=\"Supreme Court Poised To Deliver Victory for School Choice in ... Vouchers Case\">communal worship<\/a> than the one before it, the most recent gaps have shrunk to the point where each new cohort no longer impacts the overall percentages in a significant way.<\/p>\n<p>Other researchers, such as Cornell University associate professor of sociology Landon Schnabel, have offered an alternative explanation. They believe that over the last half-century Americans have increasingly learned how to shape their spiritual lives according to their personal values, not institutional creeds. With the result that nearly everyone today who might have a problem with the requirements of organized religion has stopped attending worship services, causing the historical decline to, in Schnabel\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/2025\/04\/14\/america-isnt-becoming-less-spiritual-its-becoming-differently-spiritual\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">words<\/a>, \u201cnaturally level off.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And then there is the <a href=\"https:\/\/canopyforum.org\/2025\/02\/04\/the-push-away-from-religion-and-the-pull-toward-secularity-the-rise-of-the-nones-in-the-us\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">theory<\/a> suggested by University of Tampa professor Ryan T. Cragun and Western Michigan University\u2019s Jesse M. Smith, which argues that the psychological distance between the religiously affiliated and unaffiliated is not nearly as far as many think, since a majority of the latter still believe in God or some kind of spiritual reality. And since the difference between the two groups is more elastic than absolute, their separation has finally been stretched to the limit.<\/p>\n<p>Without taking away from the possibility that any of these explanations could account for some of Christian worship\u2019s recent strength, what is surprising is that no interpreter has as yet considered the impact of the declining prestige of what until recently has been its most influential critic: higher education. Although no more than <a href=\"https:\/\/educationdata.org\/education-attainment-statistics?utm_source=copilot.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">61 percent<\/a> of Americans over age 25 have ever attended college \u2014 and even fewer (<a href=\"https:\/\/educationdata.org\/education-attainment-statistics?utm_source=copilot.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">38 percent<\/a>) have ever received an associate\u2019s degree or higher \u2014 the American media have long conditioned audiences to regard professors as the most reliable source of insight on important subjects. So much so that many people have traditionally relied on an author\u2019s academic credentials to decide whether or not to buy someone\u2019s non-fiction book. <\/p>\n<p>But today, the same colleges and universities which have historically promoted unflattering portrayals of communal worship \u2014 depicting it as everything from repressed sexuality and racial prejudice to cult fanaticism and capitalist exploitation \u2014 are themselves experiencing a serious image problem. Campus developments such as banning speakers on ideological grounds, supporting transgender men in women\u2019s sports and in their bathrooms, equating of free market economics with colonialism, and regarding conventional family life as white supremacy have clearly lowered the average citizen\u2019s opinion of the academic world. So have calls to \u201cdefund the <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >police\u201d \u2026 \u201creplace gender-based identifiers<\/a> with self-selected pronouns\u201d \u2026 \u201cblame Israel for the terrorist attacks on itself\u201d \u2026 \u201cpay reparations for long-ago slavery that 364,000 Union soldiers died to end\u201d \u2026 and \u201cgive illegal immigrants the right to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And while it may have first appeared that professors and administrators were just doing what they always have \u2014 allowing students to express (and hopefully get over) whatever bizarre trends momentarily intrigue them \u2014 the growing impression now is of a deeper academic rejection of the most basic American values: the belief in personal responsibility, in the importance of delaying short-term gratification for higher gain, and in the wisdom of siding with individual freedom over bureaucratic governance. Republicans and conservatives are predictably the most vocal in condemning this development, but surveys from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/short-reads\/2025\/10\/15\/growing-share-of-americans-say-the-us-higher-education-system-is-headed-in-the-wrong-direction\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Pew Research Center<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/646880\/confidence-higher-education-closely-divided.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Gallup<\/a> show that even Democrats and liberals have become similarly concerned.<\/p>\n<p>If more and more people have come to mistrust the educational institution, which has turned against their fundamental beliefs, is it really a coincidence that they would simultaneously return to the religious institution which has continued to uphold them? One could try to explain the pause in declining church membership as a temporary coping response to pandemic-inspired fear of a few years back but, if that were true, why didn\u2019t the decline resume when the danger passed?<\/p>\n<p>The influence of higher education\u2019s tarnished reputation on the unexpected leveling of religious identification should not continue to be overlooked. For when the institution most responsible for discrediting the authority of organized religion over the last century has so clearly discredited its own, some kind of shift in favor of the latter is almost inevitable.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Dr. Andrews is former executive director of the Yankee Institute for Public Policy. His latest book is &#8220;Living Spiritually in the Material World.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One surprising U.S. trend: Christian affiliation stabilized after decades of decline<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2414,"featured_media":2605758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/jacob-sangster-Bt6GJdmTkyM-unsplash.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[55753,80110,46399,80111],"class_list":["post-2605757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-church-attendance","tag-college-enrollment","tag-education-trends","tag-religious-participation"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/jacob-sangster-Bt6GJdmTkyM-unsplash.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2605757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2414"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2605757"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2605757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2605761,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2605757\/revisions\/2605761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2605758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2605757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2605757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2605757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}