Summary: During early adulthood, it’s pretty common for Americans to become less religious. Many blame the college experience: viewing Universities as a hotbed of liberal, secular ideas. However, Uecker, Regnerus and Vaaler find this stereotype doesn’t hold — it’s not the students who go to college that experience the greatest decline in religiosity:

Contrary to expectations, emerging adults that avoid college exhibit the most extensive patterns of religious decline, undermining conventional wisdom about the secularizing effect of higher education.

The authors admit that this may not have always been the case: changes in both the student population as well as college campuses may be responsible for today’s situation:

America’s institutions of higher learning - even secular state universities - instead have an (over)abundant supply of religious and para-church organizations to meet the demands of students, and they often teach tolerance and respect for religion in the classroom.