Karen Spurney acknowledges she hasn’t made much time for her spiritual life while attending the University of California, Los Angeles.

She is busy with schoolwork, piano practice, sorority activities and other aspects of college life. That’s quite a shift for the 19-year-old sophomore, who said that before college she rarely missed Sunday Masses with her family and was an altar server at her Temple City, Calif., church.

“I’m a Catholic on pause,” said Spurney, who is majoring in piano performance. “I didn’t come (to college) for the spiritual aspect. My goal is to experience as much as I can.”

According to a recent UCLA study, Spurney’s experience reflects that of many college students who have a high interest in spirituality and religion but are not necessarily looking for ways to explore or practice their beliefs.

The national study, based on a survey of more than 112,000 entering freshmen at 236 universities and colleges, found that 80 percent of the students expressed interest in spirituality. But less than half said they considered it necessary to find ways to nurture their spiritual growth.

More than three-quarters of students — 79 percent — said they believed in God. But only 40 percent consider it “essential” or “very important” to follow religious teaching in everyday life.

“I think it’s the difference between beliefs and actions,” said Alexander W. Astin, coauthor of the report, “The Spiritual Life of College Students.”

“It’s not that the interior is less important, but they give external material things more priority. But if you dig beneath the surface, you’ll find students have a curiosity in spiritual development,” Astin said.

The survey was administered last fall by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute, a research and policy organization that Astin founded more than 35 years ago.

Among people surveyed, 61 percent said they pray at least weekly and 28 percent pray daily. About four in five students said they had attended religious services in the past year. Seventy-six percent of students said they are searching for meaning or purpose in life.

Despite that interest, less than half of those surveyed said they feel secure in their current religious and spiritual views. Twenty-three percent said they are still “seeking,” and 15 percent said they feel conflicted.

To guide students on their path of self-discovery, Astin suggested colleges offer specialized courses that focus on personal goals and allow reflection on what is important to students.

“An atheist student needs that just as much as a believer to make sense of their lives and understand themselves better,” he said. “Having an academic basis for it would make it all the more powerful of an experience.”

Many students entering college might be grappling with how to observe beliefs instilled by their families, but learning how to survive college is usually more of a concern than going to church, said Rick Fraser, a California State University, Los Angeles professor of sociology who teaches a class on the sociology of religion.

The UCLA report found that students showed a generous level of religious tolerance and acceptance for those outside their own beliefs. More than 80 percent of students agreed that “nonreligious people can lead lives that are just as moral as those of religious believers.” And 64 percent said most people can grow spiritually without being religious. Nearly two-thirds disagreed with the statement that people who don’t believe in God will be punished.

The report marks the second study for the “Spirituality in Higher Education: A National Study of College Students’ Search for Meaning and Purpose.”