Every fall, millions of American families send their sons and daughters off to college with a mixture of pride and anxiety. They hope that their students will mature, sharpen their minds, and step into their callings with confidence. Too often, what comes home during the Thanksgiving holiday isn’t just a tired college student. It’s a changed one.
This is the silent crisis playing out on campuses across the country. While parents expect education, many universities orchestrate re-education. The classroom, once a place for honest inquiry, has become a platform for ideology. In my new book, ‘College without communism’ I argue that higher education has shifted from shaping students through truth to shaping students through cultural conformity.
This shift rarely happens all at once. It is slow, subtle and often invisible to those who live in it. Students are immersed in environments that question faith, reframe morality, and replace belief with relativism. They are encouraged to deconstruct everything except the worldview of the institution itself.
But here’s the hope. Culture never gets the last word. The Thanksgiving break offers something precious and increasingly rare on the academic calendar: time. Time to reflect, to reconnect, to remember.
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Two young adults at the Thanksgiving table talking to two family members. (iStock)
Thanksgiving isn’t just a break in the semester. It’s a sacred opportunity. It brings students back to the people who knew them before the pressure to conform. It opens the door for truth-telling, spiritual reflection and the restoration of identity. In a world that tries to blur lines and erase roots, this holiday can remind students exactly who they are.
This is not just about political drift. It’s about spiritual foundations. Many students enter college with a vibrant faith, but return home unsure of who God is, what is right, or why the truth even matters. And it doesn’t take long. Sometimes it only lasts one semester.
That’s why families can’t afford to think of Thanksgiving as a time to relax. It’s a time to get involved again. Don’t settle for small talk at the table. Ask real questions. Invite an open conversation. Speak life and identity into your student with love and clarity. Remind them that their worth is not determined by grades, popularity, or cultural approval, but by being made in the image of God.
Pray with them. Share your own beliefs. Tell the story of how your faith was tested and strengthened. And when they come home with questions, doubts, or struggling with big ideas, don’t close the door. Open it wider. Listen with patience. Respond with grace. Then point them back to the truth that never changes.
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Today’s students are not as hostile to faith as the headlines suggest. Many are quietly searching for something solid in a culture that feels increasingly unstable. They crave clarity, connection and courage. Families and churches can meet that need if we are willing to speak out and stay close.
At Southeastern University, we work every day to equip students not only with knowledge, but also with wisdom. We want them to think critically, without being consumed by ideology. We want them to engage with culture without losing their soul. And we know that none of that happens without families, churches, and mentors committed to building the whole person.
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Thanksgiving is more than a holiday. It’s a spiritual reset. It roots us in gratitude. It reconnects us with our story. And for students who are being pulled in all directions, this can be the lifeline that gets them back to who they were always meant to be.
This generation does not need to be saved from college. It must be re-rooted in the truth. So this Thanksgiving, let’s do more than just sit around the table. Let’s remind our students who they are, who they are and why it still matters.
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