In America, Does More Education Equal Less Religion?

Source: Pew Research Center

Overall, U.S. adults with college degrees are less religious than others, but this pattern does not hold among Christians

(Mario Tama/Getty Images)

The idea that highly educated people are less religious, on average, than those with less education has been a part of the public discourse for decades, but some scholars of religion have called this notion into question. 1 And a new analysis of Pew Research Center surveys shows that the relationship between religion and education in the United States is not so simple.

On one hand, among U.S. adults overall, higher levels of education are linked with lower levels of religious commitment by some measures, such as belief in God, how often people pray and how important they say religion is to them. On the other hand, Americans with college degrees report attending religious services as often as Americans with less education.

This analysis looks at measures of religious identification and commitment among Americans with different levels of education. Pew Research Center has previously published data from the opposite perspective, looking at levels of education among people in different religious groups. In the U.S., Hindus and Jews are among the most highly educated religious groups. Worldwide, Jews have the most years of formal schooling

Moreover, the majority of American adults (71%) identify as Christians. And among Christians, those with higher levels of education appear to be just as religious as those with less schooling, on average. In fact, highly educated Christians are more likely than less-educated Christians to say they are weekly churchgoers. 2

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