Students may be less likely to attend religious services while in college than they were as high school students, but that doesn't mean they're not wrestling with spiritual and ethical issues, a study suggests.

An increasing number of undergraduates express a desire to explore the meaning and purpose of life as they progress through college, it says.

The findings both delighted and surprised the study's authors, Alexander and Helen Astin, retired UCLA professors who are engaged in a multi-year study of how the college experience influences spiritual development. It is funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

The Astins argue that higher education has been neglecting the "inner" development of students, such as their emotional maturity, self-understanding and spirituality.

Now, their most recent study, based on a survey taken by more than 14,000 college students on 136 campuses at the start of their freshman year in fall 2004 and again at the end of their junior year in spring 2007, appears to challenge some common assumptions.

"Colleges are considered sort of bastions of secularism," says Alexander Astin. These findings suggest that "we have every reason to believe that the colleges are actually fostering some of these changes."

The study reinforces other research showing a decline in attendance at religious services among college students.

Among incoming freshmen, for example, 43.7 percent said they frequently attend services; by the end of their junior year, that was down to 25.4 percent. Also, 37.5 percent of juniors said they do not attend services, up from 20.2 percent who said so as new freshmen.

But the Astins' study, for the first time, documents what they call "significant growth" among college students nationwide in the desire to engage in a spiritual quest, to be more caring, and to develop an ecumenical worldview.

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