Losing your faith at BYU, BYU-Idaho, BYU-Hawaii or Ensign

First: doubting is not a violation

• No school's policy says that doubts, questions or reading the Gospel Topics Essays cost you anything. In 2016 a BYU spokeswoman told the Deseret News the former-member rule applies to students who resign their membership, not to students with doubts.
• The pressure point is the ecclesiastical endorsement, not your inner life. The endorsement interview asks Latter-day Saint students about things like sustaining church leaders, regular church attendance, tithing and the Word of Wisdom, and a bishop can decline to renew an endorsement or withdraw one.
• So the practical risk comes from that interview and from your church records, not from what you think on a Tuesday.
• Policies change, and they changed as recently as July 2026. Read your own school's page (linked below) before you decide anything big.

Sources: Deseret News, Aug 2016; BYU Honor Code Office, information for ecclesiastical leaders.

The endorsement, explained

• All four schools require one to be admitted and to keep enrolling, and BYU and Ensign require one to graduate. Per BYU, a BYU endorsement also counts for the other Church Educational System schools.
• At BYU and Ensign College an endorsement is good for 12 months, and BYU lets you renew starting 90 days before it expires. BYU-Hawaii also renews in the 90 days before.
• New as of July 1, 2026: at BYU, a first endorsement, or a renewal after yours has expired, needs an interview with your bishop AND a member of the stake presidency. BYU-Hawaii and Ensign now add the stake presidency once an endorsement has expired. Two interviews. Twice the chances to be asked how you are doing, really.
• At BYU, if your endorsement expires mid-semester you keep your current classes, but you can't register, add from a waitlist, or graduate until it's renewed. You need an active endorsement on graduation day for the degree to post.
• BYU says your bishop and the Honor Code Office don't share information with each other without your written consent.

Sources: BYU endorsements; BYU, troubleshooting endorsements; BYU-Hawaii; Ensign College; BYU-Idaho.

If you resign, or your membership is withdrawn

• BYU: resigning, or having your membership withdrawn or formally restricted, means you immediately lose good Honor Code standing. You must discontinue enrollment and you can't graduate, even with every class finished. Resigned members are not eligible for an endorsement.
• Ensign College: the same rule, nearly word for word.
• BYU-Idaho: excommunication or "disaffiliation" (having your name removed from church records) automatically withdraws your endorsement.
• BYU-Hawaii: a student who disaffiliates, or whose membership is withdrawn or restricted, is automatically withdrawn from school, and a withdrawn endorsement means at least one calendar year away.
• The exception petition: BYU, Ensign and BYU-Idaho let you petition the Dean of Students within 10 days; at BYU-Hawaii the university president decides. If granted, BYU-Idaho's and BYU-Hawaii's exceptions cover one semester at most. At BYU you can stay in class, housing and your campus job while it's considered, but you can't graduate or register for new classes, and the dean won't review the bishop's decision.
• Joining another church doesn't reset you. BYU counts anyone who has ever been baptized as a member, so the chaplain route for students of other faiths is closed to former members. Your baptism follows you more faithfully than your home teacher ever did.

Sources: BYU Student Standing Policy; Ensign College endorsement policy; BYU-Idaho withdrawn endorsement exception; BYU-Hawaii endorsement; BYU-Hawaii exception; BYU, who counts as a member.

Timing, if you get to choose

• Resigning your records is optional and can wait. A posted degree can't be taken back by a bishop. Many people finish school first and deal with the paperwork later, and that's a legitimate choice. The Keep or remove your records guide covers the middle paths.
• Know your endorsement's expiration date. That's when your next interview happens, whether you plan for it or not.
• If you're leaving mid-semester, check your school's tuition refund chart first. At BYU the refund drops in steps over the first couple of months of a semester and then hits zero, and BYU warns a full withdrawal can affect financial aid.
• Money: BYU charges students who aren't Latter-day Saints twice the member tuition ($3,548 vs. $7,096 a semester for full-time undergrads in 2026-27). Tithing, it turns out, was the discount code.
• Line up the next school before you leave this one, if you can. Admissions offices answer email, and a planned semester off is fine. An accidental one is stressful.
• Staying quiet until graduation, or leaving now: real students make both choices. Nobody here grades you on which.

Sources: BYU tuition refund chart; BYU tuition.

What you keep

• Your credits. You earned them. They go wherever your transcript goes.
• Your transcript. BYU's registrar says outright that an ecclesiastical endorsement is not required to order a transcript. Orders go through Parchment.
• Your Honor Code file stays put. BYU's Honor Code Office keeps most records for seven years and shares them with another school only with your authorization.
• At BYU-Idaho, BYU-Hawaii and Ensign, ask the registrar in writing how transcripts work after you leave, and keep the reply.

Sources: BYU, ordering a transcript; BYU Honor Code records requests.

Transferring

Each of these has a transfer admissions page, and an admissions counselor can tell you how your credits will land before you commit:

• University of Utah (Salt Lake City)
• Utah Valley University (Orem: ten minutes from BYU, several cultural light-years)
• Utah State University (Logan)
• Weber State University (Ogden)
• Southern Utah University (Cedar City)
• Salt Lake Community College (open enrollment, a good landing spot while you decide)
• Idaho State University (Pocatello, the nearest big university to Rexburg)
• University of Hawaii at Manoa and Hawaii Pacific University (Honolulu, for BYU-Hawaii students staying on Oahu)

The Honor Code, while you are still there

• It applies until you're gone, so know what's in it. The CES Honor Code still lists abstaining from alcohol, tobacco, tea, coffee and vaping, and regular participation in church services.
• Men are expected to be clean shaven. Beard waivers exist for one medical diagnosis (pseudofolliculitis barbae), BYU theatre productions, and religious reasons. The Honor Code: the only place a beard is a moral failing.
• Counseling is confidential. BYU's Counseling and Psychological Services says it does not share client information with parents, professors, ecclesiastical leaders or the Honor Code Office without your written consent. That makes CAPS one of the few rooms on campus where you can say all of it out loud.

Sources: CES Honor Code; CES dress and grooming; BYU beard waivers; BYU CAPS confidentiality.

People who have been here

• You are not the first. Plenty of students have lost their faith at a church school and finished a degree, there or somewhere else. The BYU section of Resources has their stories, plus reporting on how the policy has played out.
• LGBTQ+ students: USGA is an unofficial LGBTQ+ student group in Provo, and Encircle runs a free drop-in house in Provo for ages 12 to 25. Both are in the BYU section.
• Heads up: FreeBYU, the group that campaigned against the former-member rule in 2014 and 2015, no longer runs freebyu.org. The domain is now a gambling spam site, so don't follow old links to it.
• MoNomo's PIMO support board is full of people who have sat through an interview while thinking very different thoughts.

Mental health support

• BYU Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS): 801-422-3035. Confidential, as above.
• BYU-Idaho, BYU-Hawaii and Ensign each run a counseling center for students.
• SafeUT is a free crisis chat and tip app for Utah K-12 and college students, run by University of Utah Health's Huntsman Mental Health Institute. Utah only.
• A therapist with no tie to the church can help with the parts that are hard to say on campus. The Secular Therapy Project in the Mental health section of Resources is a good place to start.

Sources: BYU CAPS; SafeUT.