A new study finds that college students get more interested in spirituality between their freshman and junior years, but their interest seems to be the vague and hazy kind.

The UCLA study surveyed over 14,000 students in their freshman and junior years. The study found that juniors became more interested in “integrating spirituality into my life,” “attaining inner harmony,” “seeking beauty in my life,” and “becoming a more loving person.” Students become more interested in “improving the human condition,” and in learning about other cultures and countries.

Students are less interested in traditional religion, however. Frequent church attendance drops from 43.7% in high school to 25.4% in college. The number of non-attenders almost doubles, from 20.2 % to 37.5%.

Gordon Govier, spokesperson for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF), applauds increased spiritual interest but told WoW that students may be embracing what Robert Bellah called “cafeteria religion:” “People liked to take the good parts of different faith religions and put them together into their own little package that they were comfortable with. … People are used to picking and choosing and it’s a feel-good kind of thing. Whatever they’re comfortable with, they’re going to go with that.”

How can Christians guide these vague spiritual yearnings towards truth? The survey found that students believe in the importance of “helping others” and “reducing pain and suffering in the world,” so IVCF’s Urban Projects invite students to participate in disaster relief or inner city ministry. Evening Bible studies “show how the Bible specifically addresses the issue of justice, inner peace … the broader themes the students are interested in,” Govier said.

Denny Brogan, an IVCF staffer, told WoW that students seek a spirituality they can apply to their lives – a practical, not just a mystical or historical religion. Brogan suggests that personal testimonies can move a spiritually interested student to seek Christianity specifically: “They need to see that it is something that impacts somebody’s life.”

The New York Times ran a story about the recent exponential cost increase for birth control on college campuses. Because of a change in federal law, young women are now paying much higher prices for their formerly subsidized prescription contraceptives. Get me a violin.

Planned Parenthood, however, has opened its doors to encourage promiscuous, dehumanizing sexuality on college campuses. At Tufts University in Boston, for example, the contraceptive NuvaRing rose in price from $8 to $50. The nearby Planned Parenthood facility offers the contraceptive for $27.

“The potential is that women will stop taking it, and whether or not you can pay for it, that doesn’t mean that you’ll stop having sex,” said Katie Ryan, a senior at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, who said that the monthly cost of her Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo, a popular birth control pill, recently jumped to nearly $50 from $12.

Ms. Ryan, 22, said she had considered switching to another contraceptive to save money, but was unsure which one to pick. She has ended up paying the higher price, but said she was concerned about her budget.

“I do less because of this - less shopping, less going out to eat,” said Ms. Ryan, who has helped organize efforts to educate others on campus about the price jump. “For students, this is very, very expensive.”

Here’s a crazy idea: What if college women stopped having sex until they established, with their male cohorts, a committed, whole-life partnership for the good of each other and for the rearing and education of children, cultivated in an ancient institution called marriage? The intimate commitment of life and love which constitutes the married state is the best context for human sexuality, even for college students.

By not having sex at all, however, the high cost of contraceptives can by-pass college women altogether. Wounded, narcissistic college men use young women for personal gratification, disguised by manipulative phrases like “I love you” and “you’re so beautiful,” but the men have no interest in living out the full implications of human sexuality, namely, a life of love committed to one woman and to nurturing children. Wounded, narcissistic women willingly participate in the premarital sex factory that ultimately produces nothing but emotional, physical, and spiritual pain.

Some will welcome the cost increase in hopes that the expense may retard the injurious practice of narcissistic sex and raise awareness of the great divorce of sexuality from its marital intention to produce children and cultivate life-committed love–a divorce, many argue, accelerated by the introduction of artificial contraceptives.