American Muslims more likely than other citizens to have a college degree — study
POLITICS
4 min read
American Muslims more likely than other citizens to have a college degree — studyAmerican Muslims are highly educated, deeply devout, and more likely than others to hold a college degree, with six in ten saying religion plays a central role in their lives.
More than one in four Muslim Americans hold postgraduate degrees. / AA
a day ago

Washington, DC — For years, the story of American Muslims has often been told as a community positioned, if not apart, then adjacent to the American religious story.

But data released by the Pew Research Centre this month turns that narrative inside out.

In the largest survey of its kind, Pew's 2023–24 Religious Landscape Study (RLS) offers a sweeping portrait of religious life in America — and reveals a surprising symmetry.

It finds that Muslim Americans are not just keeping the faith, they're also leading in classrooms and lecture halls across the country.

Forty-four percent hold college degrees, with more than a quarter having postgraduate credentials, far ahead of both Christians and the unaffiliated. And yet, their spiritual lives remain vibrant, with young Muslims praying, gathering, and believing as deeply as generations before them.

The study, which concluded in March last year, points out that Muslims and Christians, the two largest faith groups in the world, share near-identical levels of religious commitment inside the United States.

Six in ten American Muslims say religion plays a significant role in their lives, the nationwide study found. Among the American Christians, the number is 55 percent.

Belief beyond labels

These figures challenge old assumptions — that more education leads to less faith, or that Muslim devotion is a sign of dogma instead of strength.

In fact, Muslim Americans are more likely than both Christians and the religiously unaffiliated to hold college degrees, the study found.

More than one in four Muslim Americans hold postgraduate degrees. That figure stands in stark contrast to 14 percent of Christians and 16 percent of the unaffiliated who have similar credentials.

And yet, religiosity remains remarkably strong among Muslim Americans, especially among the young. A full third of Muslim adults are under the age of 30, and they are as likely to pray, attend mosque services, and centre faith in their daily lives as older generations.

The Pew finding says that Muslims in the US pray more frequently than most other Americans.

Canonical Islamic practice encourages five daily prayers, and data reflects that rhythm: 59 percent of Muslims say they pray several times a day. Another 28 percent pray regularly, though less frequently. Only 13 percent say they seldom or never pray.

This isn't just a portrait of devoutness. It's a quiet rebuke to the assumption that education erodes faith.

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Muslims are also more likely than others to be current students. Nearly one in three Muslim adults in the US is still in school, a figure that dwarfs the six percent of Christians and 10 percent of unaffiliated adults who say the same.

That student surge is partly demographic: 35 percent of Muslim adults are under 30, compared to just 14 percent of Christians. But it is also cultural, a reflection of the emphasis many Muslim families place on education as a means of security and self-definition in a country that has too often asked them to prove they belong.

Even as Muslim Americans mirror Christians in faith and surpass them in formal education, they face a level of scrutiny unmatched in American public life.

American religious experience

According to a separate Pew survey from 2024, seven in ten Muslims say they have felt a rise in discrimination since the start of Israel's war on Gaza in October 2023. This sense is not imagined.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) received more than 8,000 complaints of anti-Muslim bias in 2023 alone, the highest number in its three-decade history.

About 44 percent of US adults say there is a lot of discrimination against Muslims, which is slightly more than the shares saying this about Black people (40 percent).

And yet amid the noise of politics, war, and rising hate, the data also offers quiet clarity.

"The relative youth of Muslim adults also may help explain why a large share of them are currently raising children. About four-in-ten Muslims (42 percent) say they are the parent of a minor child living in the home. That compares with 27 percent of Christians and 29 percent of religious unaffiliated adults," the study says.

Roughly a third of all Muslim American adults are under the age of 30, making Muslims much younger, on average, than Americans as a whole.

Muslims make up just 1 percent of the adult US population, but their presence, the study reveals, is deeply etched into America's moral and civic life.

SOURCE:TRT World
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