Chronicle of Higher Education: Religious Colleges Are Booming. Why?, by Clark G. Gilbert (former BYU President; Co-Chair, American Council on Education Commission on Faith-based Colleges and Universities):

Young people are adrift, and they want a different kind of education.

Today’s young adults live in what the former U.S. surgeon general has called an “epidemic of loneliness and isolation.” Moreover, a recent study by the Harvard Graduate School of Education showed that nearly two-thirds of college-aged youth say they lack purpose; half of them describe the anguish of “not knowing what to do” with their lives. …

Less than half of Americans (only 42 percent) express confidence in American higher education, according to an education survey by the Lumina Foundation and Gallup. This crisis of confidence is particularly pronounced among conservative and religious Americans. Many share the concern that Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University, articulated at an American Council on Education meeting: “Today’s universities have elevated academic freedom above moral clarity.” Have we pushed the academic enterprise toward what Harry R. Lewis, former dean of Harvard College, once called “excellence without a soul”?

Faith-based colleges and universities (FBCUs) have tried to withstand this disconnect. Their mission statements are decidedly oriented toward teaching character. Some critics see this as a relic of the past, especially at a time when the number of people who disavow any religious identity continues to grow. The Pew Research Center has repeatedly documented this pronounced rise in religious disaffiliation among college-age Americans.

And yet, despite this trend, enrollment at faith-based colleges has been quietly growing for decades.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, total enrollment at faith-based institutions has risen by more than 80 percent since 1980, significantly outpacing the national average. Today there are over 1.8 million college students enrolled at over 850 FBCUs. In a recent meeting of the American Council on Education’s Commission on Faith-based Colleges and Universities, presidents from Baptist, Catholic, and Jewish colleges reported sustained increases in student applications. This has also been true for the Brigham Young University system, where enrollments have doubled in the last 25 years, growing from 75,000 students in 2000 to over 150,000 students today.

Part of the reason FBCUs are flourishing is that they promote discussion of purpose and meaning in a season of growing social uncertainty. They also provide safe spaces for religious students to connect to their most deeply held beliefs. As Eboo Patel, founder of Interfaith America, explains, “People with a particular religious identity … need a place where they can have their identity supported, especially when that religion has a history of facing bigotry, as the Latter-day Saints, Jews, and Catholics certainly have.” Patel goes on to argue that like the nation’s historically Black colleges, FBCUs provide a welcoming refuge for members of religiously marginalized groups. …

Remarkably, the enrollment growth at faith-based institutions isn’t all from religious students. It appears that even nonreligious students want to learn in a community oriented toward elevating character. For example, Yeshiva University, a historically Jewish enclave, reports than its recent enrollment growth includes many students who aren’t Jewish or even religious. They simply want to study in an environment that respects faith and isn’t hostile to discussions of meaning and purpose. …

Truth-seeking that excludes character development will not help a generation that already feels lost. With two-thirds of college-age youth reporting that their lack of purpose is affecting their mental health, the calls for character education aren’t just moralistic charges from a few religious colleges. The nation needs higher education to do more. And the continued rise in enrollment at religious colleges is a sign that students want more. Universities like Arizona State, Princeton, Wake Forest, and others are striving to teach character despite not having a shared national service or religious mission. Regardless of institutional heritage, these efforts require humility and a willingness to search for common ground, including efforts to accommodate religious identity and other deeply held values. But that is exactly what our nation’s young adults need as they face this on-going crisis of meaning and purpose.

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