Christians with college degrees are more likely to attend church regularly, says Pew study

American Christians with college degrees are more likely to attend church regularly compared to less-educated believers, a new study has found.

According to the study conducted by the Pew Research Center, 52 percent of Christians with a college degree say they attend weekly religious services, compared with 45 percent of Christians with some college experience and 46 percent with a high school degree or less.

The findings stand in contrast to the idea that more education would mean less religious belief.

The study noted that higher levels of education are linked with lower levels of religious commitment among American adults as a whole. However, the case is not the same when it comes to Christians.

The survey results suggested that Christians with higher levels of education are just as religious as those with less schooling.

It indicated that 70 percent of Christians who have college degrees have a "high level of religious commitment" compared to 73 percent of those with some college experience and 71 percent who have no college experience.

When broken down by denominations, the findings showed that 36 percent of mainline Protestants who are college graduates are more likely to attend church once a week, compared to 31 percent of those with a high school diploma or less.

Eighty-seven percent of evangelical Protestants who graduated college had a high level of religious commitment, compared to 83 percent who had some college education and 82 percent with a high school education or less.

Among Catholics, 45 percent of those who graduated from college are more likely to attend mass, compared to 39 percent who only had high school education or less.

Overall, 46 percent of all college graduates say religion is "very important" in their lives, compared with 58 percent of Americans with only a high school education. Eleven percent of college graduates identified themselves as atheists or agnostics, compared to four percent of adults with high school education or less.

A full three-quarters of college graduates are still affiliated with some religion, which is not different from those with some college experience (76 percent) and those with high school education (78 percent).

Pew explained that the study does not attempt to explain why Americans with more education are less likely to profess belief in God. It also does not try to explain why college-educated Christians tend to go to church more than their less-educated counterparts.

The statistics were based on Pew's 2014 U.S. Religious Landscape Study involving over 35,000 American respondents who were reached on randomly dialed cell phones and landlines.