Very Religious State Universities

Princeton Review publishes a bunch of fun college lists every year. One list, Students Pray on a Regular Basis, is based on their campus survey question, "Are students [here] very religious?"

The top of the list is a not-very-surprising collection of church-related schools: Brigham Young, Wheaton, Pepperdine, Notre Dame.

The top twenty does include, though, four state-related universities. This fact is a little surprising at first. Looking at the four, though, perhaps it isn't.

9. University of Utah
10. Texas A&M
17. U.S. Air Force Academy
19. Auburn University

Utah is a world unto itself religiously – even the state university is effectively Mormon. I am not surprised that many Texans are religious; I think the Aggies make the list, but not UT, because the higher a school's engineer-to-humanities ratio is, the more religious it is likely to be. The Air Force Academy, located in the Western Capital of Evangelicaldom, Colorado Springs, has been so religious lately that it has gotten into hot water. Why Auburn is the sole representative of the Southern state schools, I don't know, but I am not surprised to see the Deep South on this list.

Interestingly, the parallel list, Students Ignore God on a Regular Basis, based on the lowest scores on the same survey question, has no state schools in the top 20, with the possible exception of the New College of Florida.