By Luke Araujo | Staff Writer
By the time spring rolls around, Baylor students’ social media feeds are blooming with engagement announcements and photos of rings.
As a Christian university, “ring by spring” is the tongue-in-cheek goal of many students according to Stacy Keogh George in an issue of Christian Perspective, but how many embrace the push to get engaged by the spring semester of their senior year?
- Out of 20,928 American undergraduates surveyed in 2008, 18% reported they were married (National Center for Education Statistics).
- Out of 18,033 Baylor students, 60% are female and 40% are male.
- In a 2016 survey on Baylor students, 22% of male students and 62% of female students said they felt pressured to be married, while 77% of male students and 35% of female students said they did not feel pressured to be married. 2% of students said they were already married.
Georgetown sophomore Parker Wise said he is surprised that 2% of Baylor undergraduates are married.
“That is a 1/50 chance, which is actually more than I expected,” Wise said. “On the other hand, compared to the 18% reported for American undergraduates in general, that is almost nothing. I wonder what makes Baylor so different in that respect.”
“It makes sense to see the diversity of responses in undergraduate students since it is possible for students to be affected by factors that could pressure students into marrying,” Texas Tech University sophomore Calogero Gonzales said.
Correction: This page has been updated. The article originally said the Baylor Institute for Faith and Learning defined “ring by spring,” when in actuality Stacy Koegh George wrote that definition in an article in the Christian Perspective. George is a faculty member at Whitworth University. The Christian Perspective is published under the auspices of the Baylor Institute for Faith and Learning in 2016.
