The nearly 3 million college freshmen who crowded the nation’s campuses in the fall of 2004 were looking for a lot more than higher education from America’s colleges and universities. Almost 75 percent of them said they came looking for a higher purpose. According to a landmark study released in April, nearly half the students expected the college to help them find it.

Those are just two of the surprises that popped up when UCLA professors emeriti Alexander and Helen Astin began to examine the wealth of data they had collected from 112,232 entering freshmen during their first week of school at 236 U.S. colleges.

According to Dr. Helen Astin, the report “was full of such surprises.”

Helen and Alexander Astin are co-principal investigators for the “Spirituality in Higher Education” research project, the first broad, in-depth look at the religious and spiritual views of college students. The on-going study is being conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) and funded by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

Although the current study was informed by a pilot survey in 2003 of 3,680 juniors at 46 colleges and universities, “in many ways our findings from last fall’s effort have taken us by surprise,” Astin explains.

“College students today are quite serious about their search for deeper meaning. Our findings show that this is indeed an interesting and caring generation, in stark contrast to the widespread stereotype that would paint them as self-centered, uncaring, and obsessed with financial success.”

Findings reported in the “National Study of College Students’ Search for Meaning and Purpose” indicate that more than two-thirds of the students have high expectations for the role that colleges and universities will play in their spiritual development. And almost half of the freshmen members of the class of 2008 say it’s “very important” or “essential” for their college to encourage personal expressions of spirituality.

Widely reported in the national press, including the Chronicle of Higher Education, Time and US News and World Report, the study reveals many facets of students’ inner lives:

Almost 80 percent of college freshmen believe in God, with more than half perceiving God as “love” or as the “creator,” and about half experiencing God as a “protector.”

69 percent of first-year students draw personal guidance from their beliefs, 42 percent describe themselves as “secure.”

More than 70 percent of entering freshmen admit to grappling with big questions about the meaning of life.

More than two-thirds pray, and four in ten consider it very important that they follow religious teachings in their everyday life.

A high correlation between spirituality and well-being is reflected in data that shows students scoring high on scales of religious commitment or spirituality are more likely to have a healthy diet, abstain from alcohol and tobacco, and avoid staying up all night.

Alexander Astin was both “surprised and gratified by evidence that this generation combines a strong interest in spirituality and religious identity without polarization and a high level of tolerance and widespread acceptance of students with different viewpoints.”

“Templeton’s support for this work gave us the luxury of being able to probe pretty deeply into the spiritual and religious life of young people. Because this is the first large scale survey to explore the spiritual life of a segment of the population,” Astin said, “we don’t know whether adults would answer these questions the same way.”

A member of HERI’s national advisory board, the Rev. William H. Willimon is familiar with the Astins’ findings, which are consistent with his own observations of college life gleaned from 20 years as Duke University’s Dean of the Chapel.

After two decades in Durham, North Carolina, Willimon is not surprised that the reigning caricature of college students as success-driven materialists has been so dramatically called into question by the Astins’ quantitative research.

Appreciative as he is of college students and as much as he respects their interest in life’s larger questions, he is less than sanguine about the experience awaiting them on America’s college campuses.

“The originating vision of higher education as a place where the young are initiated into the wisdom of the past has turned into a place where the old abandon the young to their own meager resources,” he said recently. “Because the university lacks the conviction or the vision to suggest to the students any rules or moral structure, students are forced to make them up as they go.”

“It’s time that modern higher education checks out its environment and the effect that it is having upon our best and brightest,” Willimon warned.

As the Astins themselves note, research suggests that the Rev. Willimon’s concerns are well-founded. Because prior studies indicate that religious activity actually declines as students progress through college, the Astins plan to follow these same students by surveying them as juniors to see how they change in different kinds of programs and institutions.

“Given the long history of academia’s neglect of this area,” Alexander Astin explains, “we think additional research could help suggest how colleges and universities could enhance students’ spiritual development. Or, conversely, what we need to avoid if we don’t want to adversely affect or impede their spiritual development.

Rabbi Susan Laemmle, dean of the University of Southern California’s Office of Religious Life, shares similar concerns about academia’s role in students’ spiritual lives, because “This is a very confusing world that young people are going into.”

“The pressure begins from the day students arrive here—pressure to survive, pressure to succeed, pressure to build their resumes. They’re looking for coping mechanisms, and begin exploring their spirituality or seek out religious groups for guidance and peer support in handling the pressures of college life.”

“College is supposed to be a time of intellectual and moral exploration,” as Laemmle is quick to acknowledge. “It would be naïve to imagine that spiritual exploration won’t be part of the package.”

Located in one of the most spiritually diverse cities imaginable, USC is a place where religious vitality is a fact of daily life. Fifty-seven religious groups are now active on campus; alongside the customary Protestant, Catholic and Jewish offerings, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Bahais and Pagans have organized their own menu of programs and celebrations. Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians vie for students’ attention with Mormans, Christian Scientists and Seventh Day Adventists.

When students seek her out for counseling, Laemmle makes a point of directing them back to their own religious roots first. From there, the spiritual journey is freewheeling and uncircumscribed. Laemmele, for one, sees that as a good thing. “Exploring is what college freshmen do” she says emphatically.

The Astins’ research has led them to the same conclusion. “For academia, the implications are that it would behoove us to pay much more attention to this aspect of students’ lives,” explains Helen Astin. “Now that it’s clear that students expect more, colleges and universities are going to have to do more.”

David K. Scott, former Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a member of the institute’s advisory board, suggested that “as the import for higher education is better understood, the research findings may well be transformational in their impact.

“Once students latch onto a new direction, they become a very powerful force for change. The HERI study documents a very broad interest among students that certainly has the potential to drive change and transformation, not only on our nation’s campuses, but in the larger society as well.”

Links of Interest
Spirituality in Higher Education Project
Milestones for February 2004 covered the initial phase of this research project.

Christopher Bugbee is a freelance writer and consultant on public affairs and communications strategy for independent sector institutions.

To receive a free monthly copy of Milestones by direct mail, please forward your request and address to milestoneseditor@templeton.org. To subscribe to any of the Foundation’s various free e-mail newsletters, including Milestones, go to our JTF Newsletter Subscriptions page.

Milestones is a publication of the John Templeton Foundation.