Not according to the studies I find. How about giving those studies that prove your statements. Everything I find says it is between 50 to 80 percent walk away after making some sort of profession.
http://www.conversantlife.com/theology/how-many-youth-are-leaving-the-church#mce_temp_url#
I would challenge this "study" and those linked in the post on several grounds:
1. They seem to define church involvement using a paradigm from last century of being involved with one institutional/traditional church 2+ times a week at least 3 weeks a month. When students go to college they lose the consistency of attendance for a lot of reasons. The reality for most adults under the age of 35 is that their regular church attendance is defined as maybe 2 times a month. These kinds of studies don't adequately gauge the level of parachurch ministry (i.e. Campus Crusade, or Cru, BSM, Sojouners, etc.)
2. These studies don't differenieniate between casual student attenders and active student attenders. For instance in our student ministry we keep a track of the students who graudate, their involvement prior to, and then resulting engagement post-high school. The students who leave in droves were actually never there to begin with. They attended a local assembly with their parents but never got highly involved. They sat at the periphery at best. Thus there is nothing to keep them involved once away.
3. Most of these studies ask the wrong questions. They never penetrate below a surface level attendance test to see how deep someone's spirituality flows. I know several students who went off to colleges, were casually involved in churches, but had major involvement in unstructured small groups and ended up pursuing ministry degrees and positions post-college. They wouldn't fit into the box these surveys mandate for recognition.
4. These surveys aren't broad and certainly aren't scientific. Most of the surveys related below aren't scientific surveys conducted by independent agencies. Rather they are conducted by the individuals seeking to draw down the influence of student/youth ministries. When one encounters actual surveys done by reputable groups the numbers change.
Maybe the final point I would make (which is unrelated to the surveys) is that when these students are returning to church (or staying in church) while in college the churches aren't traditional/institutional churches. Now I know you'll find some samples of 18-24 year olds staying in their home churches or returning to a traditional church. Yet the vast majority of these individuals are going to large churches that are specifically geared towards and attracting under 35 year old worshippers. When I attend these churches I see crowds of young adults who have, for the most part, all left traditional churches for these more progressive style gatherings. They are hard to track because most of the young adults don't attend group gatherings but only go to worship.
All that said I have a set of links myself to respond so here is the basis for a lot of what I've said above.
http://www.christianpost.com/news/college-not-public-enemy-for-religiosity-study-shows-27982/
http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2010/03/how-facebook-killed-church.html
http://www.edstetzer.com/2007/08/listening_to_students_about_le_1.html
I think student ministries are among the best ways to continue to reach a rising generation. That said student ministries that are devoid of parental involvement will not see sustainability. For a student ministry to be successful, parents must be involved. Churches can't raise kids but can provide effective environments for kids to grow and be reached.
