Higher Education and Theological Liberalism: Revisiting the Old Issue*

It has long been assumed that higher education has a corrosive effect on religious belief and practice. Contrary to research from the 1970s and 80s, however, recent studies show that the college experi-ence has little effect on the religiosity of college students. In this paper, I reconcile these opposing viewpoints by showing that higher education has a liberalizing effect, but only for a minority of stu-dents. A sample of church-going Protestants demonstrates that those with higher education are more theologically liberal, but the type of education matters more than the amount of higher education. Exposure to secular theories and whether one attends secular or religious schools have robust effects on theological liberalism. Key words: education; Protestant Christianity; beliefs, congregations. It has long been assumed that higher education has a corrosive effect on religious belief. Contrary to research from the 1970s and 80s, however, recent studies show that the college experience has little or no effect on the religiosity of the majority of college students. Much of this recent research has focused on religious behavior, not orthodoxy, and thus the question of how higher edu-cation effects religious belief remains unsettled. In their recent review of th