In a 2007 survey of the religious identification of first year students at UNH, Reverend Larry Brickner-Wood, the chaplain, campus minister and executive director of the United Campus Ministry, was struck by the drastic change. From 2005 to 2007, the percentage of college students who identified themselves as Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist or other either rose or stayed the same.
The largest category of the survey and the largest category of Christianity - Roman Catholicism - dropped from 40 percent to 30 percent. The second largest category, no religion, rose from 19 percent to a staggering 34 percent.
"I had never seen that before," said Brickner-Wood. "There seems to definitely be less patience for it these days, especially for organized religion."
More...