As Enrollment Nationwide Slows Down, Religious Schools Buck the Trend. Why Is That?
Credit: Aaron Hawkins / iStock Unreleased / Getty Images- Faith-based college and university enrollment grew by 82% from 1980-2020 — much faster than the national average of 57%.
- Religious schools help foster a sense of belonging and purpose for students.
- Leaders say their commitment to individualized care and affordability is a draw to students.
- The growth is so dramatic that the American Council of Education has formed a commission of faith-based schools to share insights.
Growing up Mormon in Scottsdale, Arizona, Clark Gilbert experienced bullying and had trouble finding a community. That all changed when he enrolled in Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah.
Being around people who shared his values was confidence-building, Gilbert said. For the first time in his life, he felt like he fit.
Gilbert graduated from BYU in 1994.
Today, Gilbert is an elder and commissioner of education in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) helping college students find the same sense of belonging that changed his life as a college student. That’s the promise of a religious institution,
he told BestColleges.
Across the country, enrollment data shows college students are increasingly finding a place they belong at faith-based colleges and universities.
According to National Center for Education Statistics data, enrollment at faith-based colleges and universities grew by 82% from 1980-2020, which was stronger than the national average of 57%.
Gilbert said the network of BYU campuses governed by the LDS — including BYU-Provo, BYU-Idaho, BYU-Pathway Worldwide, and BYU-Hawaii — has experienced similar growth. From 2000-2023, enrollment at these universities governed by LDS grew from 60,000 students to almost 150,000.
Gilbert said he believes students are drawn to faith-based colleges’ convictions around their purpose. He said there is a narrative in academia that academic freedom and exploration should be decoupled from a moral framework, but faith-based colleges argue that they can run parallel.
Our young people are smart, and they know intellectual exploration and academic growth … isn’t in conflict,
Gilbert said.
Students Find a Sense of Belonging, Purpose
The Institute for Higher Education Policy released a report in August summarizing how important the sense of belonging is in students’ persistence and completion.
Gilbert agrees this is part of faith-based colleges’ success. Students find that they feel like they belong at schools that share their faith.
Furthermore, Gilbert wants to expel the narrative that faith-based colleges are isolating. He said students choose religious schools not to be naive or narrow or isolated.
Just as Gilbert found his place at BYU, he said religious schools attract students who always feel like they are minorities
and added they offer a safe space for students to feel a sense of belonging and where their values are respected and dignified.
Gilbert said he knows BYU students are not socially isolated, despite what others might say: We aren’t going to a convent and hiding from the world.
He said students come from all over the U.S. and over 100 countries and then leave to be engaged citizens all over the world.
Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University, has a hypothesis for why students are choosing faith-based schools.
I believe there is a crisis in America and it’s a crisis of meaning,
Berman told BestColleges. Students are looking for meaning and purpose. They’re finding it in institutions that have a mission. So I see continued growth all throughout these institutions.
Berman said that students are drawn to Yeshiva for its academics and value-based education.
He said that when students look at other colleges, they don’t see their values reflected.
Enrollment at Yeshiva increased from 2021-2023 and had almost a 40% increase in applications from 2020-2023.
And this growth is not just with Jewish students, but non-Jewish students as well.
Berman said that the mission of Yeshiva — and other faith-based colleges — lends itself to individualized student support. Berman said one of Yeshiva’s core values is that every individual student is holy, and they show this respect for each student through individualized attention and support.
Meeting Students’ Needs
Gilbert said religious schools have a faith-based mission — or a pastoral duty of care — to help students afford and complete college. He cites two ways this is done: philanthropic donations from outside community members of the same faith, and lowering the cost of higher education at faith-based colleges.
Gilbert said religious schools have a pastoral duty of care to lower their cost and focus on students.
I know most academics — whether they are religious or not — they care about their students,
Gilbert said. This is important to all of us.
Dr. Amanda Staggenborg, chief communications officer for the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU), offered an alternative explanation.
Enrollment offices are doing incredible work with advanced placement, direct admissions, and the growth of graduate programs,
Staggenborg told BestColleges.
Students on the CCCU campuses believe their campuses are safe for all students at a significantly higher rate than students at colleges and universities nationally,
Staggenborg said, citing the Ruffalo Noel Levitz Student Satisfaction Inventory.
Religious campuses have an ethos based on a central Christian philosophy, moral integrity, and ethic that is appealing to so many students and parents,
Staggenborg said. CCCU institutions also have smaller class sizes, greater interaction with faculty and staff, and strong academic catalogs that educate the whole person.
Room to Grow
In May 2024, the American Council on Education (ACE) announced a new commission for faith-based colleges and universities that includes Berman and Gilbert as members of its executive committee.
Derrick Anderson, senior vice president of education futures at ACE, said who a university enrolls is a manifestation of the university’s mission.
He explained that strategies for enrollment are not one size fits all — they depend on how the school wants to focus locally, regionally, nationally, and globally.
Berman said that the faith-based schools commission at ACE really speaks to a collaboration of universities who are trying to make a difference in higher education and work with each other and learn with each other.
One area Anderson says faith-based colleges are not represented in is as major research schools.
Historically, faith-based colleges are not R1 institutions, and this concerns Anderson as a professor who focuses on science and tech policy at Arizona State University.
He said in the past, many in the scientific community have dismissed the idea of faith-based schools being meaningful R1 contributors. However, he thinks there is no reason why faith-based colleges can’t have a seat at the science table.
Another area he said he would be interested in seeing more faith-based colleges operating is in the workforce development and credentialing space, which is currently dominated by publicly funded community colleges.
The Trend Continues
Berman, Gilbert, and Anderson all see this growth trend continuing.
When I look in the crystal ball, I see increased demand. I see increased pathways to college. I see colleges being more radical in their willingness to engage learners, and I see more colleges and universities being open to nontraditional universities, and religious colleges and universities falling into these categories,
Anderson said.
However, the growth might not be seen across all identity-based institutions. While Gilbert says there are similarities between religious schools and historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), the two sectors of higher education have not had the same journeys of enrollment growth.
Enrollment at HBCUs saw 47% growth from 1976-2010, but then an 11% decrease between 2011 and 2022. HBCUs saw enrollment growth in 2021 and 2022, experienced a slight decline in fall 2023 enrollment but saw interest jump again in fall 2024 after the U.S. Supreme Court’s affirmative action ban in college admissions.
Meanwhile, women’s colleges have been closing or going co-ed to keep up in this challenging higher education market. Women account for nearly 60% of all students enrolled in higher education institutions. However, only 5% of female college students are enrolled in women’s colleges.
Faith-based institutions have had a uniquely upward trend of enrollment growth, compared to other identity-based institutions — like HBCUs and women’s colleges — which were formed to create educational opportunities for historically excluded populations.
Just before Gilbert spoke with Best Colleges in early September, he was in a budget forecast meeting for the BYU schools. He said that at every single BYU school, enrollment is up this year — in record levels for some. He said they fully anticipate the increased enrollment trend to continue at faith-based schools for a long season.