Students Split on Religious Identity

College students are pretty much evenly split in their religious identification, with 32 percent each identifying as religious and "spiritual but not religious," and 28 percent calling themselves secular, according to Trinity College's latest American Religious Identification Survey. Respondents include about 1,700 randomly selected students at 38 four-year colleges and universities nationwide, about two-thirds of which were public, who chose to complete the voluntary survey. Religious students were significantly more likely to identify as conservative (34 percent), while secular students (44 percent) most often identified as liberal. Not surprisingly, opinions on public policy issues seemed to vary based on religious identification, but some less so than others. For instance, while 35 percent of religious students and 67 percent of secular ones said it's "very true" that women must defend their reproductive rights, and half of religious and 95 percent of secular students said same-sex marriage should be legalized, 57 percent of religious and 81 percent of secular students said the country needs more gun control.