In another thread, a poster mentioned that "Mormons tend to be highly educated." I had never heard that, and I decided to look it up. I'm sure you've hashed this thru' before (lots of times?), but I thought the following could be interesting to some readers.

One of the most clearly illustrated finds to address this topic (that I came up with) is here:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/09/mormons-are-average/#.U7OLWKLY-8A

The 2010 post concludes, 'These data seem to imply that Mormons are average white folk,' and then suggests some reasonable explanations for the misconception that Mormons tend to be more educated. I wondered to what degree it's simply that Mormons, themselves, say or project or imagine that they are more educated. What say you?

It is scary how many people in Utah claim to hold Master's degrees but are really stupid.
Most of those who brag about how far they went in school tend to be mormons.

LDS culture places a very high value on worldly signs of success like earning advanced degrees and working in the traditional professions (law, medicine, etc.). I would guess that they probably are better-educated, as a group, than the general population (which would not be very difficult).

HOWEVER, there is a big difference between having earned a credential and being truly educated. Higher education is primarily intended to develop the higher cognitive skills; it is not, as many people believe today, job training. But academic standards are so low these days that it is common for people to graduate with a BA/BS or even Master's and doctoral degrees without really having developed those higher faculties. This is especially problematic in fields like psychology, social work, and education. It is common to see people with advanced degrees in those fields who cannot reason logically beyond a high-school level (or lower).

I suspect this is what happens with a lot of Mormons. They may very well earn more degrees than other people, but they are not truly educated. They have not been changed and cultivated by their studies. They've kept it at a very shallow level, memorizing enough to do well on tests, but not really achieving greater understanding of the world.

Re:"I would guess that they are probably better educated . . ."

Please read the article. You guessed wrong. It would appear you are the very audience I was addressing, and you missed the point entirely.

No, I did not miss the point. I disagree with the article, and I think the data is flawed.

And you didn't really make a point. You asked a question, so I replied, and now you're attacking my answer. Here's a helpful hint: just because something is written in an article does not make it true.

Screen Name Wrote:
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> I disagree with the article, and I think the data is flawed.

Can you explain why you think that? In the years since my exit in 2007, several studies have independently shown that Mormon education levels are average. A few of these studies are cited in the OP. I'm curious what data you have to refute this.

...lots of mormon chiropractors out there. They get the Dr. Title( they are not doctors) easy schooling .. Quacks

LDS culture also places a high value on taking two years off from education to sell cult memberships, and on getting married as young as possible and then popping out as many kids as possible, all of which works against education and advanced degrees.

"I would guess that they probably are better-educated, as a group, than the general population (which would not be very difficult)."

Given that Mormon salaries average with the national population (Pew), I would guess that Mormon education is likely average as well.

Atheists are much smarter than Mormons, and Baptists are just plain stupid. Aren't statistics wonderful?

Who needs statistics when anecdote alone will get you there?

Plenty of anecdotes that say the same, but statistics are science, and science is kewl.

Amen to the kewlness of science.

Does anyone know what percentage of mormon women complete college or have advanced degrees? I'm guessing it's much lower than for men.

Just a guess, but I would think that Mormon WOMEN, if married, tend to be less formally educated than the married Mormon MEN. In my years in the Church, I noticed that the women only finished their degrees once the Children were grown. (Because they already had THE most important job next to, of course, the male job of being educated and holding the penishood.)

The women I knew in Church tended NOT to have any post high-school degrees whatsoever. Unless they were converts or a "sweet spirit" who couldn't find a worthy male to take her to the Temple. (Ack! Gag! Sorry, hairball...)

There was once a time. But now they have dropped even trying to make it look like they encourage education. education gives way to intellectualism, a so called enemy of the church. Look around you today. who is the new mormon convert? An educated family man who will holde the priesthood? not any more . they are people who are on the fringes and margins, people with little education and lots of problems. go to BYU and you will have your mind stifled because curiosity is discouraged. as far as I can tell, BYU does not have anything successful there besides a famous business school and law school, the two areas that now define mormon leadership. Mormons want Pharisees, not smart people.

"Mormons want Pharisees, not smart people."

Wow. You just totally nailed it there. That about sums it all up.

Okay I am the one who made this claim in another thread. What I should have said is that even those Mormons who are highly educated are not particularly smart. I am fortunate to have had the opportunities to get an advanced education and thus I have always been in wards where there are other people with a similar level of education and income. I would look toward them for signs of doubt, criticism, or anything. I saw nothing of the sorts.

The words 'intelligent' and 'mormon' are mutually contradictory.

How many Mormons have degrees in subjects like zoology, geography, anthropology and/or linguistics? Each of those fields debunks the lies of J Smith with only minimal study required.

Adherence to a particular faith isn't entirely logical or based on "intelligence." You can be very bright in one area and a total dunce in another.

I personally know many very bright TBMs. However, they obviously "compartmentalize" and are not objective when it comes to their faith.

Are Muslims any different?

Boyd K Pecker Wrote:
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> Adherence to a particular faith isn't entirely
> logical or based on "intelligence." You can be
> very bright in one area and a total dunce in
> another.
>
> I personally know many very bright TBMs. However,
> they obviously "compartmentalize" and are not
> objective when it comes to their faith.
>
> Are Muslims any different?

Mormons tend to go into business and become accountants or shopkeepers. You don't see them becoming scientists.

Muslims are much the same, in fact ignorance is even more of a virtue in "modern" Islam.

I once lived in a ward that was based in a college town. There were several professors in that ward. there was a linguist, Philosopher,geologist, mathematics, and English professor all in one ward. They also happened to be the ones in the top leadership positions, and the ones who taught GD classes. In other words they were die hard mormons. The other things they all had in common was that they were from Utah(we were about 1500 miles from utah), and all had gone to BYU.

I would be shocked to hear that any of them had left the church. First of all, they kept religion in a little box and far away from any worldly information. They refused to entertain any ideas that may shake their religious foundation. For the life of me, I can't figure out how they were good professors at a secular university. I never did, but it would have been interesting to sit in on their classes. Especially the one with the PhD in Philosophy. I can't put the two together without there being some major conflicts of the mind.

I'm reminded of a Michael McLain I think song that I heard ad nauseam on my mission (only approved music outside MoTab and Fresh Air ughh) where the lyrics very clearly state that some Mormon girl "grew up, got married to Bobby, and kept him working on his MBA"

Maybe it's because Mormon women are trained to nag their spouses about getting MBAs if the husband fails to get it, then there is social pressure for both to lie about it because they are both failures at that point. (imho that's a degree the world could use less of)

Also on a funny side note, autocorrect had fixed song with dong. I should have left it.

Well if they hand out degrees the same way they hand out Eagle Scouts.....

One thing I admire about Mormons is their pragmatism. They won't let things like evolution stand in their way of making a buck.

Being Mormon is expensive. You have to raise a parcel of kids on 90% of your income while losing 1+ days a week. You have to send your kids on missions on your dime. All that takes professional money, so they become doctors, lawyers, MBAs and dentists, lots of dentists. They will get enough schooling to make good money.

They do not value liberal and fine arts degrees. You won't see a lot of Mormons with Phds or degrees in Art history or music. The joke was that women getting their Mrs. would take humanities or French to teach her children. Now women need to work as well.

Liberal arts also tends to make you question things. I was a history major and my interest in history was not healthy to my "testimony" of the JS et al. Mormons want you to learn organic chemistry, but not early Christian history.

IMHO, there's a big difference between Mormons outside the Morridor, and those inside it. I teach at a university somewhere in the Morridor, and I've lived both behind and outside the Zion Curtain, and have noticed that, outside the Morridor, Mormon men tend to be educated similiarly to those around them -- "average." Women still lag behind, but not as much as they do in the Morridor.

In the Morridor, Mormons see a degree as a way for the man to earn plenty of money to support the large families they plan to have (or are already having) and the desired lifestyle (big house, SUVs, and plastic surgery for the wife so she can stay hot for hubby). For women, a degree is "insurance" in case hubby dies early and she has to raise the family by herself (unless she becomes a K-12 teacher or a nurse). Now that missionary ages have dropped, it's likely that a lot of women will never make it to college, much less finish.

I teach a lot of freshmen; it's typical for quite a few of them to get engaged, marry, or even celebrate their anniversaries during their first semester/year on campus. And of course most of them start having babies right away. That's when they start to drop out. Retention rates are very poor compared to national percentages.

It's very difficult for students to juggle college, marriage, babies, and jobs (usually full-time, graveyard shifts) -- and many of them burn out. These are the people who spend their 20s and 30s living in their parents' basements with a litter of children and then come back to university in their forties. It's not pretty.

Very few, if any of them, see college as anything but a meal ticket to a better-paying career; they simply don't care about critical thinking, inquiry, research and discovery, personal intellectual growth, or learning for learning's sake. They are there to make more money and want to get in and out as quickly and easily as possible.

Highly educated? No way.

icedtea Wrote:
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> Very few, if any of them, see college as anything
> but a meal ticket to a better-paying career; they
> simply don't care about critical thinking,
> inquiry, research and discovery, personal
> intellectual growth, or learning for learning's
> sake. They are there to make more money and want
> to get in and out as quickly and easily as
> possible.
>
> Highly educated? No way.

That would apply to the general public at large, not just the morgies.

I see a strong "PR Effect" in peoples' perceptions occurring.

All one hears about are the "impressive youth" who get Eagle Scout awards, then serve missions and immediately go on to higher education, etc.

Perhaps there is an impression out there that all those clean cut missionaries in dark suits and white shirts go on to become the businessmen, attorneys and accountants they look like? :-)

70% + of the "leadership" where I grew up in the mission field were working class, most with no education beyond high school, and no apparent desire to learn a whole lot more. They did seem to like to get to play "junior executive" on Sundays.

Utah (to me) has always seemed to be the land of MLM, get rich quick schemes, overvalued stock issues, etc. Education, learning, etc only being important as a tool to set up the next caper. There seems to be a belief that if the "Lord" will just bless them in their efforts to rip off a bunch of people once, they can then be "financially independent" and do church stuff full time!

The "highly educated workforce" in Utah is typically cited as the reason companies move to Utah. I just did a search to see if Utah had more college grads than average and found this:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700214956/Economic-concerns-arise-as-fewer-Utahns-have-college-degrees.html?pg=all

"Utah's educational advantage is shrinking, according to Census Bureau data. In 2009, Utahns with a bachelor's degree totaled 28.5 percent, or 0.6 percentage points more than the national average. By comparison, Utah bachelor's degree holders in 2000 totaled 26.1 percent, or 2 percentage points more than the national average."

"I believe that the way that we have sold ourselves in the past is with a young, educated and highly productive labor force has been true and a big part of explaining our economic success," Kelly Matthews, former executive vice president and economist for Wells Fargo Bank in Utah, said during a panel discussion. "We must do everything we can to avoid the attainment slipping that would erode the concept that we are a highly productive labor force."

"In 2009, Utah ranked 32nd nationwide in educational attainment with 28.5 percent of adults ages 25 and older holding bachelor's degrees or higher, according to U.S. Census data. That is a drop of 15 positions from 2008."

Why would Utah be slipping? I know Utah had higher than average immigration during this time period. Does that explain some of it? Could some of it be explained by the fact that some RM's don't finish college until they're over 25?

You bet Mormons are "highly educated" - but it depends a lot on where you live-- !! That was the case where we lived, in University towns, for instance.
Men and women both had at least one degree. Sometimes two.
Some women got a partial degree, had kids, went back to school. Very common.

Utah is only one place to get a degree. And they are limited to how many they can squeeze into their universities.
I have adult children with a degree from two different UT schools.

In one area, I was one of only a few women in the church with no complete degree.

I think if they broke it down into men and women, the stats would be somewhat different. The fact that there are mormon men holding very prestigious positions in government, higher education and business, makes mormons think they as a group are so educated. Those are the people they hear about. There are tons of other people in those same positions, as these charts show.

But there are so few mormon women in those kinds of positions, let alone ones who hold advanced degrees, or any degree, for that matter. When we used to talk about how educated mormons are, we meant men. I think (hope) that is changing some, but it's not changing fast enough. We baby boomer women certainly were not expected to get an education and many of us have paid dearly for that. So when you average in the men and women, we pull the average down a lot.

Mormons do tend to be highly indoctrinated.

I would not label them as a people known for critical thinking.

Mormons are highly educated. They are just not highly smart.