Spiritually strengthening and intellectually enlarging experiences are two aims BYU students work towards during their college careers.
Religion is directly involved in the pursuit of knowledge at BYU. Classes are often started with a hymn and a prayer offered by a student.
Each Tuesday there is a campus-wide devotional for all students, staff and faculty to attend. During this time, all other campus resources are closed so whoever would like to can attend.
BYU is sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Church views receiving an education as a religious responsibility and something that should be a continuous life-long pursuit.
In contrast to this, studies have shown that the more educated a person is, the less involved in religion they become.
“Among all U.S. adults, college graduates are considerably less likely than those who have less education to say religion is 'very important' in their lives.” according to a Pew Research study.
However this is not true among Christians, specifically members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In the case of members of the Church, the more educated they are the more religious they are.
According to the study, 92% of Latter-day Saints who graduated college have an overall high religious commitment compared to 78% of Latter-day Saints who have less than a college degree.
These studies only show numbers and statistics, they don’t explain why more education equals less religion or why members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are typically an exception to the rule.
BYU religion professor, Justin Dyer, has some thoughts on why this is.
Professor Dyer has researched why people leave The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One of his research subjects said, “Now that I'm on my own and don't have the influences of my family, I feel like I honestly just don't really know what I believe in.”
When young adults who are members of the Church leave home for the first time, they no longer have the religious support system they grew up with.
However, because BYU is a Church-sponsored university, it is common for the social life of students to revolve around religious functions, whether Sunday meetings or ward activities throughout the week.
This support system makes it much easier to continue going to church and attending activities, the same way students did at home with family.
Professor Dyer also pointed out that at BYU professors focus on helping students to understand how the new secular knowledge they are learning can fit in with their religious knowledge.
“At BYU ... we're going to help you learn the best of the secular knowledge and increase in that way, but then also help you to fit that in with your religious beliefs, and have your religious beliefs grow at the same time that your secular knowledge is growing,” he said.
He compares this culture of BYU with other institutions that do not combine secular knowledge with religion, expressing, “Your education becomes your religious belief. You’re no longer surrounded in an environment that supports your religious beliefs in facts.”
For example, when a student studies sciences nothing is true unless it can be proven. This is in direct conflict with religious beliefs because you cannot prove there is a God through research and experiments.
Carla Pruitt, a highly educated woman with several college degrees, said that throughout her undergraduate experience, her thinking has become increasingly more pragmatic.
All of her degrees came from “very liberal” colleges where religion had no place in the classroom.
Pruitt has a bachelor's degree in psychology and two master degrees, one in professional communications and the other an MBA.
All of these programs are very science based “where there's processes and theories and whatnot, I think it makes you think of things more pragmatic, where, when it comes to religion, I think it's just what you believe.”
Pruitt didn’t grow up in a religious home, although she wouldn't describe her family as atheist. Sundays were for “barbecues, going to the lake and watching football.”
But in regards to religion throughout her education and career this is what she said.
“If you were to say, because of the education track that you went down and having two master's degrees in programs that are very liberal based or very science based, with that has that made you more or less religious? I could probably argue maybe a little less religious.”
The relationship between education and religion is complex and deeply personal.
While national trends suggest that higher education often leads to a decline in religious involvement, BYU presents a notable exception.
At a university where academic and spiritual development are deliberately intertwined, it offers a unique environment that supports both scholarly and religious growth.