t is a well-known fact that today’s youth are self-interested neo-narcissists, unable to concentrate on anything remotely spiritual and devoid of compassion. On top of it all, they have short attention spans. At any rate, that’s what the current cultural stereotype holds.

But like many an earlier stereotype, this one, too, has crumbled beneath the accrued weight of scientific research. This time it’s courtesy of Alexander (Sandy) and Helen Astin of the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at UCLA.

“We were surprised to see how ‘searching’ young college students are, and how interested they are in spiritual matters,” says Helen Astin, “We didn’t expect to find that.”

This groundbreaking research called “Spirituality in Higher Education: (click here for the findings of this research) A National Study of College Students’ Search for Purpose and Meaning” was underwritten by a $2 million Templeton grant. In the spring of 2003, a pilot survey was sent out to over 3,600 juniors at 46 colleges and universities in North America.

Originally, the Astins’ interest in conducting the study rested on two trends that appeared to show college students moving away from spiritual and religious questions. “The percentage of students who believe in the importance of developing a meaningful philosophy of life has fallen from 80% in the late 1960s, to 40% in the new century,” says Alexander Astin. “We also noticed an all-time high among students who said they had no religious preference in the three decades of our surveys.” Taken together, the two results suggested to the husband and wife research team that students were no longer interested in spiritual and religious matters. But the new surveys have shown that not to be the case. “We had been looking at narrow issues,” explains Alexander Astin, “and when you look beyond those two questions we found a very high level of interest. About three out of four students show significant interest in spiritual and religious matters. That just about tracks with the general population.”

When the results of the 2003 survey were released, 73% of the college students polled said their religious or spiritual beliefs helped to develop their identity, 77% said they prayed and 70% believe people can grow spiritually without being religious.

Other notable surprises from the research were the high tolerance students had for people without religious beliefs or with different beliefs. “The apparent polarization popular in the media is not reflected by the students. Even if they are very devout, they exhibit a high level of tolerance of people who are different than they are,” says Alexander Astin. “And,” noted Helen Astin, “we had a high number of evangelical and religious colleges in our study.”

The impact of the study is already being felt. Graduate students are picking up on the research. Stories about the survey are appearing in national media, including the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. “There has been a high level of interest shown by both faculty and administrators to the survey. And now, because we have the data, we can really create even more awareness,” says Helen Astin.

For instance, one trend happening in higher education didn’t have an obvious spiritual convergence until the Astins’ survey uncovered it. “The service-learning movement has courses that involve a field component. We learned that for many students it is a spiritual experience to go into another community. We found they use this time as a kind of reflection. That kind of experience, if properly defined, encourages spiritual exploration,” says Helen Astin.

In 2007, the Astins will follow-up their initial research by looking at how the students, now juniors, have evolved and what role their individual colleges have had on their thinking.

Now that they have started plumbing the spiritual psyche of today’s college students, what early conclusions have they reached? “I am optimistic,” says Alexander Astin. “There is tremendous potential in any generation. To us the real challenge in higher education is to realize this potential.”

www.spirituality.ucla.edu