It's a long-running joke that you can't leave a BYU devotional or fireside without receiving counsel to get married and to "multiply and replenish the earth."

The mammoth task of finding Mr. or Mrs. Right keeps many BYU grads living within the Provo city limits after graduation, although many are reluctant to admit it, Jardine said.

That weekly push toward marriage seems to be working — marriage really is a high priority for students at BYU. According to a study by Bruce A. Chadwick, a professor of sociology at BYU, marriage is very important to 95 percent of the men at the school and 97 percent of the women. Nationally, the average is 83 percent among female college students, Chadwick reported.

Nearly 50 percent of BYU's 2004 graduating class was married, and 16 percent had kids. It's the same story at USU, where about 50 percent of the class of 2003 was married.

In a May 2002 campus devotional, Chadwick chided BYU students to get out and get that wedding ring. "We cannot sit in our apartments, we cannot spend long hours at work, we cannot endlessly play video games and wait for the Lord to bring a spouse to the altar for us."

Recent grads feel the pressure from such counsel and will stay in Provo where they are surrounded by other single students and recent graduates, Jardine said.

"I think a lot of people stay (in Provo) to get married," Jardine said. "Everybody says there are plenty of people like that. It's just finding someone that will actually admit it."

A former Utah State University student isn't embarrassed to admit his reasons for staying in Logan. Shane Frazier, who graduated in December 2003, said its easier to meet other singles in his college town.

"I'm single," Frazier said. "If I was offered a job in Preston, Idaho, I don't think that would work out as well. I wouldn't have a lot of choices, so to speak."

---

E-mail: ldethman@desnews.com