Education ranking by religious groups

[moksha]

Here is an interesting tidbit.


There seems to be an enormous gulf between Jehovah Witnesses and Unitarians. Mormons fall somewhere in between.

[Hagoth]

Wow, that's a huge surprise to me. I was always taught that Mormons were way ahead of the curve on college education. Another bubble popped. I'm also surprised at how many graduates are in the Evangelical/Born Again segment, but then I remember how many Christian universities there are.

[moksha]

I'm also surprised at how many graduates are in the Evangelical/Born Again segment, but then I remember how many Christian universities there are.

Makes you wonder whether the Evangelicals might be counting Bible Camp as higher education. Maybe the Evangelical girls dating Roy Moore-types counted those dates as tutorials with emeritus professors.

[Jeffret]

The rankings vary a bit across different studies.

Here is a graphic from the Pew study, published in 2016, using data from 2014:

[Jeffret]

And here is data from the PRRI survey, published in 2017:

[Jeffret]

Part of the variation seems to be which groups the study counts, or how people are counted into groups. The Pew study breaks it down into the most number of groups and Mormons fall right about the middle, just above the average for U.S. adults. The Kosmin & Keysar study has a medium amount of groups and Mormons fall at about the bottom third, several points below the total national average. If you compare their groups to the Pew study, the Pew one has more categories for groups that hit the higher rankings that are missing in the Kosmin & Keysar breakdown. The PRRI graphic shows Mormons at about the top third, but has the fewest categories, particularly in the top-scoring groups from Pew.

The number of Mormons with a college degree is fairly consistent across the three studies: 30% in Kosmin & Keysar, 33% in Pew, and 32% in PPRI. These are probably about within the margin of error, particularly since Mormons are a pretty minority group nationwide. The percentage of U.S. adults with a college degree varies quite a bit between the Kosmin & Keysar study, 33%, and the Pew study, 27%. The PRRI study doesn't list that figure. You would think that would be a more reliable figure but it seems unlikely it would drop 6% in about a decade.

The surprisingly high number for Evangelical / Born Again in the Kosmin & Keysar study, 49%, isn't replicated in either of the two studies. Unlike the Mormon Church, there is monolithic definer of this category. None of the studies have matching categories in this area. The Pew study ranks the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) near the bottom of the top half with 36%. In spite of its name, though, the ELCA is not very conservative nor what is commonly thought of today as evangelical. Towards the bottom of the Pew study are various churches that would be considered more evangelical. The PRRI study lists "White evangelical Protestant" near the bottom, with 25% college graduates.

Some of the other shifts are dramatic.Consider Muslims: 46% in Kosmin & Keysar, 39% in Pew, and 33% in PRRI. Or Buddhist: 43% in Kosmin & Keysar, 47% in Pew, and 37% in PRRI. I don't know if these represent changes in these demographics or sampling changes / errors.

The top three religions remain fairly consistent, though the order switches a little bit in the Pew study.

[alas]

Notice how much higher in comparison the "some college" catagory is. I suppose Mormons have a much higher rate of females who go to college while waiting for their missionary, or go to college to get their MRS degree, or just give up their own dreams because the marriage option comes up, and then their husband finishing college comes first. With the ones who are only in college waiting to get married, they drop out without finishing. Then there is the big group who put their husband's education and career first, so they give up their own education because that is what the church expects them to do. I even fell into that catagory for about 10 years, because my returned missionary hubby is 4 years older and didn't want to wait for me to finish because I had 3 1/2 years left and then his draft number got close, so he enlisted in the US AF and my life got put off for years.

But because Mormons stress marriage as THE most important thing a woman can ever do, I think that a huge percentage of women start college and never finish, even when then have career aspirations.

[Jeffret]

The PRRI presents and orders the data a bit differently than the others. The Kosmin & Keysar study solely shows those with college degrees. The Pew study orders by those with college degrees but shows other, lesser education levels. The PRRI study breaks those with college degrees into two categories.

The biggest difference is that the PRRI study sorts by those with a high school education, or less. If it sorted by college degree like the others, Mormons would come out at the top of the bottom half of the pack.

That's driven by a real oddity in the Mormon data in the PRRI study -- Mormons show a whopping 33% who start college but don't finish. That's a very curious result. My guess is that a significant portion of that is because of the Mormon young women, as driven by the Mormon / BYU culture. They start college but then get married and are pressured to quit to support their husband and to raise a family. To a lesser degree, that probably also applies to the young men. Mormons value education in the abstract, but not when it conflicts with the Church or particularly with the Church's obsession over sex. Missions probably have a significant influence, also.

This same datum also shows up in the Pew study, where they found 40% of Mormons start but don't finish college. The only group with a larger figure for that in the Pew study is African Methodist Episcopal, at 44%. I suspect that latter group encounters lots of systemic barriers to finishing a college education that don't apply to predominately white Mormons.

[Jeffret]

Alas, you noticed the same thing I eventually did. Very interesting, and significant, information in that bit right there.

[Thoughtful]

Notice how much higher in comparison the "some college" catagory is. I suppose Mormons have a much higher rate of females who go to college while waiting for their missionary, or go to college to get their MRS degree, or just give up their own dreams because the marriage option comes up, and then their husband finishing college comes first. With the ones who are only in college waiting to get married, they drop out without finishing. Then there is the big group who put their husband's education and career first, so they give up their own education because that is what the church expects them to do. I even fell into that catagory for about 10 years, because my returned missionary hubby is 4 years older and didn't want to wait for me to finish because I had 3 1/2 years left and then his draft number got close, so he enlisted in the US AF and my life got put off for years.

But because Mormons stress marriage as THE most important thing a woman can ever do, I think that a huge percentage of women start college and never finish, even when then have career aspirations.

Yup. I took 6 years after I married to get my undergrad. Graduate degrees were a long time coming.

[alas]

Notice how much higher in comparison the "some college" catagory is. I suppose Mormons have a much higher rate of females who go to college while waiting for their missionary, or go to college to get their MRS degree, or just give up their own dreams because the marriage option comes up, and then their husband finishing college comes first. With the ones who are only in college waiting to get married, they drop out without finishing. Then there is the big group who put their husband's education and career first, so they give up their own education because that is what the church expects them to do. I even fell into that catagory for about 10 years, because my returned missionary hubby is 4 years older and didn't want to wait for me to finish because I had 3 1/2 years left and then his draft number got close, so he enlisted in the US AF and my life got put off for years.

But because Mormons stress marriage as THE most important thing a woman can ever do, I think that a huge percentage of women start college and never finish, even when then have career aspirations.

Yup. I took 6 years after I married to get my undergrad. Graduate degrees were a long time coming.

Yes, I went back to finish college after my DH finished his undergrad and got his master's degree in engineering (through a special enlisted to officer program, while active duty) after three kids who had to go in day care, and with expensive student loans & scholarships, and lots and lots more effort than finishing before marriage would ever have taken.

It is really hard to fight Mormon culture and finish a degree when you are seen as wicked for putting your kids in daycare and going to school when you don't HAVE to because you have a husband to support you. Now the 90% of the women in my ward at the time had their kids n day care, but they "had" to work because they bought a house they could not afford. So, they were working at little more than minimum wage because they bought a house that was beyond their means, with their kids in day care or over at grandma's house for 9 hours a day, and they were righteous mothers because they "had" to work. But I was wicked for putting my children in day care while I went to classes for half a day. Mormon values . Or is it

[Corsair]

But because Mormons stress marriage as THE most important thing a woman can ever do, I think that a huge percentage of women start college and never finish, even when then have career aspirations.

This is an important point. My wife finished college with some effort and graduated while 6 months pregnant with our first child. I would like to see the statistics on that dynamic between married couples. Is it common for the husband to have a degree and the wife to have dropped out of college after marriage?

[MerrieMiss]

Notice how much higher in comparison the "some college" catagory is. I suppose Mormons have a much higher rate of females who go to college while waiting for their missionary, or go to college to get their MRS degree, or just give up their own dreams because the marriage option comes up, and then their husband finishing college comes first. With the ones who are only in college waiting to get married, they drop out without finishing. Then there is the big group who put their husband's education and career first, so they give up their own education because that is what the church expects them to do. I even fell into that catagory for about 10 years, because my returned missionary hubby is 4 years older and didn't want to wait for me to finish because I had 3 1/2 years left and then his draft number got close, so he enlisted in the US AF and my life got put off for years.

But because Mormons stress marriage as THE most important thing a woman can ever do, I think that a huge percentage of women start college and never finish, even when then have career aspirations.

Yes, this was the first thing I noticed. It would be interesting to see what the college degrees are in. In my last ward I knew a lot of women who had degrees in education - all of them in elementary education. I'm not putting down education (or elementary education), but I find the high number of mormon women who get degrees in this field interesting. Is it seen as easy? Preparing for having children of one's own? A good field to work in as a mother? Or does this hearken back to the good old days where teaching was a woman's profession and other educational opportunities are not feminine?

I've met a few Mormon men who never finished college because they had kids so early. With a wife and kids to support they went straight into he workforce. One man I know got lucky as he was mission companions with a very successful businessman who hired him on. Others, not so much.

(Just a side note: I was told having an education degree and being a teacher was a good career choice for a mother. The older I get and the more professional working women I know, the more I see that having a career in law, finance, accounting, medicine, mental health, even engineering at times, far more accomodating to a working mother's schedule. Teaching is not at all. Just my observation.)

[Reuben]

Man, I had intelligent things to say, but all y'all took mine.

Except one: JWs rank so poorly because the Watchtower Society explicitly discourages education after high school. If Armageddon is right around the corner, college just doesn't make sense. What good will your degree be in the New System? Wouldn't it be better to spend your time knocking on doors so you can save as many other people as possible?

At one point in the 1970s, WTS advised witnesses to prepare for Armageddon in 1975 by selling their homes... and then blamed them for being gullible when 1975 came and went without the world ending. I mean, come on, people. No one knows the day or the hour, right?

I think of this when I get down on my people for all their bulls***. Yeah, my parents and my wife's parents were down on my getting a PhD because I could take care of a family just as well with a BS, but it was only cultural. It wasn't God telling me that, and he was okay with me doing more than dead-end jobs, anyway.

[Hagoth]

Anyway you slice it, if you don't find the company of Mormons sufficiently intellectually stimulating, you need to spend more time hanging out with Unitarians and Hindus.

[Reuben]

Is there more selection bias going on? Are educated Mormons more likely to leave the faith?

[Jeffret]

Anyway you slice it, if you don't find the company of Mormons sufficiently intellectually stimulating, you need to spend more time hanging out with Unitarians and Hindus.

I certainly found that the case when I attended the local UU church for a while. Definitely intellectually stimulating. And uplifting.

[Thoughtful]

I wish I could remember where I saw a breakdown of earnings comparing income for male vs. Female graduates of BYU. It was really despicable, women with degrees earning miniscule amounts of money but the men doing well.

Teaching is a good degree for people whose career is less important to the family. Like nursing, social work, etc... these jobs are available wherever you move to follow the main wage earner.

I believe teaching is a horrible workload for a parent, and it's often degrading work. However, the time off corresponding to kids schedules is ideal. That's a trade-off, but the reasons teaching is so hard on teachers is mainly political.

[Jeffret]

Is there more selection bias going on? Are educated Mormons more likely to leave the faith?

Possibly not. Though we really don't have the data at the moment to say.

Here's another interesting angle on the data from the Pew study, as reported on in The Atlantic (Why Educated Christians Are Sticking With Church):

While Americans with college experience are overall less likely to attend services, pray on a regular basis, and say religion is very important to them, that’s not true within many faith groups. In fact, Catholic, Mormon, and Protestant college grads are all more likely to attend church on a weekly basis than their less educated peers.

And:

They found that educated people are generally less likely to believe in God: Among all U.S. adults, only 83 percent of college grads said they think God exists, while 92 percent of people with only a high-school degree or less said the same.

Within Christianity, though, the difference all but disappears. Among educated mainline Protestants, 96 percent said they believe in God, compared to 97 percent among the less educated; among Catholics, 98 percent of both groups said the same. Among Mormons, black Protestants, and evangelical Protestants, there was effectively no difference at all, because virtually everyone in those groups said they believe in God.

For Mormons, this certainly makes sense. It's a high-demand religion. If you don't believe in god, it's hard to see why you would put forth the big energy to retain a significant level of engagement. It's less easy to see how that works some of the other groups or in general. The article presents a number of other interesting ideas to understand the situation.

What you're asking, though, is a different question. The Church might have the data. Part of it might come down to how you define "leaving" and it's quite possible the Church defines it differently than we might. Or you might define it differently than I do. The Church counts members till they would have been 110 years old unless it knows more about them. Once baptized it continues to count them until death or resignation (and we're not entirely sure about the latter). I would count as "leaving" those who no longer attend or self-identify as Mormon. Others might count only those who officially resign. Another factor is whether we consider it nationally or internationally. In the U.S.A., if we count those who officially resign, that probably biases towards the more educated. Keep in mind though, that only a small percentage of those who stop believing and attending actually go through the steps to resign. A small percentage that gets on internet forums or meatspace groups and talk about it. The vast majority just stop believing, attending, and considering themselves Mormon. It's hard to tell how that's biased based upon education level. Given the Church's abysmal retention rate for recent converts, I'd have to guess that the largest majority of those that leave are recent converts. Given the way the Church baptizes, I'd have to guess its converts tend to rank lower on the educational level (statistically speaking). So, most who leave are the recent converts who are probably on average less educated. If we look at it internationally, that's certainly the case. The majority of those converts have lesser educational degrees and they're out almost before they're in, with retention rates of 20% in some areas.

Keep in mind that these surveys typically only gather self-reported data from self-identified members.

[Jeffret]

I wish I could remember where I saw a breakdown of earnings comparing income for male vs. Female graduates of BYU. It was really despicable, women with degrees earning miniscule amounts of money but the men doing well.

Probably something like this: BYU grads No. 1 in gender wage gap