College students in the United States spend almost $200 billion a year, according to findings from the 360 Youth/Harris Interactive College Explorer Study.  College students average $287 per month for discretionary items, defined as "spending on anything other than tuition, room/board, rent/mortgage, books/school fees."

(Source: 360 Youth, Inc. and Harris Interactive, "360 Youth/Harris Interactive College Explorer Outlook Study," in "College Students Spend $200 Billion Per Year," PRNewswire, July 29, 2002, http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-29-2002/0001773056&EDATE; from The Center for Parent/Youth Understanding's "Today's Youth Culture E-Update," Edition #18: August 5, 2002, http://www.cpyu.org/.)

"...[I]t seems like many young people today are picking and choosing elements of several religions to form their own individualized spirituality.  According to Princeton sociologist Robert Wunthow, students today are piecing together their faith like a patchwork quilt. 'Spirituality has become a vastly complex quest in which each person seeks his or her own way,' said Wunthow."

(Source: Mark Weber, "The New College Spirituality," Relevant Magazine, June 17, 2002, http://www.relevantmagazine.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=321&mode=&order=0.)

Surveying 314 students at Virginia Commonwealth University, eight researchers attempt to determine how college students deal with sexual attraction, and to see if their religious commitments and experiences help them cope.

This study, published in Marriage and Family: A Christian Journal, understandably has an interest in how Christians, especially, deal with these sorts of issues: "Because Christianity has traditionally placed restraint on non-marital sexual expression, Christians might find themselves in particularly salient situation regarding coping with sexual attraction."

The researchers found that coping with sexual attraction was correlated with students' religiosity, specifically, "self-reported methods of coping with their sexual attraction to people other than their primary sexual partner were significantly predicted by their religious experience, religious commitment, and orientation toward authoritative leaders."  In fact, the researchers found that the students who tried to who tried to inhibit sexual attraction were those who were highly religious in the first place.  That is, the students who attempted to resist temptation were students who believed that there was a real temptation that might actually lead to sin.  A somewhat troubling concomitant is the primacy of religious experience over belief, in that "[r]eligious experiences were more strongly related to inhibiting sexual expression than were religious beliefs, practices, and knowledge."

However, as to acting upon sexual attraction, the students' religious commitments seemed to have no impact.  The authors note, "Religion made no difference in predicting whether college students acted to further sexual attraction.  In a secular, state-supported university, choosing to act on sexual attraction-even when already maintaining a weakly committed heterosexual relationship-may not be perceived by most students to be a religiously informed choice."  Moreover, "[r]egardless of whether students held Christian beliefs, engaged in religious practices, had religious experiences, maintained religious commitment, or held other Christian values, their religion was unrelated to whether they acted on sexual attraction."

As the authors conclude, "Religious coping tended to be correlated with trying to resist temptation.  However, religion was apparently not related to acting on sexual temptation."  One might wonder, "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works...Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works."

(Everett L. Worthington, Jr., Kevin Bursley, James T. Berry, Michael McCullough, Sasha N. Baier, Jack W. Berry, Nathaniel G. Wade, and David E. Canter, "Religious Commitment, Religious Experiences, and Ways of Coping with Sexual Attraction," Marriage & Family: A Christian Journal, vol.4, issue 4, 2001, p. 411-423.)