Ivy League Schools See Rise in Evangelical Students

More Evangelicals are attending Ivy League universities where spiritual interest is growing more than ever, according to university faculty and campus fellowship officials.

By Audrey Barrick, Christian Post Reporter Tuesday, December 27, 2005

More Evangelicals are attending Ivy League universities where spiritual interest is growing more than ever, according to university faculty and campus fellowship officials.

"People are more hungry than I've ever seen; people want to know if it's true or not," said Craig Parker of The Navigators, according to CBN. "I've seen a growing spiritual interest."

Noting the increase in Evangelicals at Ivy League schools, Michael Lindsay, a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University, said, "This is the unintended consequence of having a more diverse student body. As these elite institutions have recruited geographically…they've also produced religious diversity, so there are more Evangelicals going to places like Harvard, Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale, than there were in the past."

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Campus fellowship groups have in turn experienced a growth surge.

The number of students involved with Campus Crusade for Christ rose 163 percent over the past 20 years at Brown University. At Harvard, participation has grown more than 500 percent and 700 percent at Yale.

"The amount of Christian groups has totally proliferated," said Nicole Leonard, a 1988 Dartmouth graduate, according to CBN. "There were only a couple to choose from when I was a student, and now there's four to six evangelical groups … it's just grown so much, that you can't deny our presence, and it's really been a positive presence."

Christian students highlighted their faith in Christ as a fuel for their hard work.

"For me, as a follower of Christ, I'd say that the excellence of my work is motivated by my Christian convictions," said Lindsay.

Brittany Pheiffer, a senior at Dartmouth, said, "It's the only part of me that trickles into everything else. It's something that I want to be able to be express in my academics, be it just that I want to work hard, knowing that I represent Christ."

While Christians remain a minority at Ivy League schools, many see a spiritual renewal and its impact on society.

"Ivy leagues are really influential. People from all over the world come here, and leaders in society are influential in that. If we can have revival in these schools, it's going to have an impact not only on our society, but the world as a whole," said Dr. Richard Denton, a professor at Dartmouth.

Meanwhile, as more Evangelicals have made their way into the Ivy League, enrollment in Christian higher education institutions has also seen soaring numbers over the past 14 years.

According to numbers from the U.S. Department of Education, total fall enrollment at member campuses of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU) grew significantly more than enrollment in other segments of higher education from 1990 to 2004. CCCU campuses grew 70.6 percent, from 134,592 students in 1990 to 229,649 students in 2004. In the same time frame, all public four-year campuses grew only 12.8 percent, all independent four-year campuses grew 28 percent and all independent religious four-year campuses grew 27.5 percent.

CCCU President Bob Andringa, in October, attributed the growth trend to a number of different factors. One big factor that he noted was academic quality.

“More evangelicals embrace higher learning,” he said.