Nathan and Brittany met through their church. She sent him a Facebook message one night after Bible study saying she thought he was cute.

Rakan and Omnia met through one of Omnia’s best friends. The friend introduced them after meeting Rakan at the freshman social at the Muslim Student Association.

Eric and Ashley met in English 101. They were partnered together on the final paper and became friends.

All three of these N.C . State couples have since made the choice get married, a choice increasingly uncommon among college students. According to the U.S . Census, the median age of a first marriage in 2010 was 28 for men and 26 for women. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, less than 15 percent of female undergrads under 25 years old were married in 2004.

A rise in marrying age has to do in part with economic factors, according to the Journal of Comparative Family Studies. But family culture is also changing, with married couples reaching an all-time low of 48 percent of households, according to the 2010 Census.

Rakan DiarBakerli and Omnia Radwan , married in 2010 and recently graduated with degrees in zoology and psychology respectively, said they did not expect to be thinking of marriage when they first came to school.

“I absolutely had no intention of getting married so young,” DiarBakerli said. “I didn’t even really think about it. My mind was still young, and I didn’t have a real long-term plan for my future in life.”

Meeting his wife, he said, helped his ongoing attempt to refocus his life onto becoming a more committed Muslim and opened his mind to new possibilities.

Nathan and Brittany Hampton, seniors in environmental engineering and women’s and gender studies, had similar expectations when they came to school, before they were married last spring.

“I was completely open to the idea [of marriage], but it’s always shocking and exciting when it actually starts to unfold,” Brittany said.

“It sounds cheesy, but she was the one,” Nathan said.

Eric Rountree , senior in chemistry, and his fiancée Ashley Jones, 2010 communications alumna, had their own career plans already set before they met, and only after they converted to Christianity did they begin to consider marriage—their big day soon to come July 23.

“That is when we started thinking about marriage, when our perspectives changed from what we wanted for ourselves,” Jones said. 

Getting married while in school does not come without challenges. Rountree said finances were the main reason that once kept him and Jones from getting married. As they further developed their devout Christian faith, they decided money wasn’t their primary concern, according to Jones.

“We just kind of had to take a leap of faith that it would be OK,” she said. “I realized that money and material things didn’t matter. What really matters is learning to love someone.”

Rountree works two jobs now, one in a campus chemistry lab and the other tutoring students, and plans to continue in the fall.

“We are not going to be living a fancy life by any means,” Rountree said, “but we will have enough money to get by.”

Giving attention to finances and schoolwork, however, takes time away from cultivating a new and growing marriage.

DiarBakerli and Radwan said they both have made mistakes in neglecting one another needed attention.

“Something that has helped a lot is to set aside uninterrupted time for one another, even if this just means half an hour together grabbing a meal,” Radwan said.

The Hamptons’ time is also tight as they are expecting their first child, and Brittany is on the Wolfpack track team. Both use online classes, and Nathan said he has to slow his academic pace.

“I feel like being married has helped me step back and have a more long term perspective on my educational and career goals,” he said.

According to his wife Brittany, a student marriage requires allotting time away from studies and sports to maintain the relationship.

“We both had to learn our limits and make time for each other every day,” Brittany said. “It’s hard …but we see how those sacrifices have brought us close together. If [your] relationship is rocky then everything else will be too. When you have a positive support system everything else just seems to fall into place.”

Though Jones is graduated, Rountree still has 22 credit hours to complete during his final two semesters.   Rountree plans to treat school as a job, arriving at school early and leaving by 5 with homework finished.

“When I do leave I can just go home, enjoy time with my wife and work on cultivating that relationship,” he said.

While many students put off marriage because of these challenges, Radwan said if you are up for the responsibility, marriage can actually help deal with stress.

“Marriage can really be a sort of catalyst for personal growth,” she said. “I think it helps one mature in ways they may not otherwise experience. And marriage allows you to have a safe person, always.”

Brittany Hampton said she experiences a similar feeling.

“I am significantly less stressed about pretty much everything now that I am married and our grades or ability to do well in school haven’t suffered,” Hampton said.

Before marriage, however, according to Jones, it’s important to spend time dealing with yourself. Students need to know what they are looking for, and it needs to be on a deeper level than interests alone. 

“You need to figure out what you really believe,” Jones said. “You need to seek that out and figure out what is truth, what is right, what is wrong.”

Rountree said he agreed.

“If you don’t, your world views are going to conflict with each other and cause a lot of problems.”