looking forward

Report: College enrollment in petroleum programs — including in Texas — sees historic drop

The future of the oil and gas workforce isn't looking too bright when it comes to recruiting, the Wall Street Journal reports. Photo via Getty Images

Student enrollment in petroleum engineering programs at universities — including Texas schools — has dropped significantly, according to a recent report.

This prospective energy workforce is concerned about job security as the industry moves forward in the energy transition, reports the Wall Street Journal. The number of students enrolled in petroleum engineering programs has decreased to its lowest point in a decade, the WSJ found, breaking the typical cycle, which "ebbed and flowed" alongside the price of oil.

This decline is estimated as a 75 percent drop in enrollment since 2014, Lloyd Heinze, a Texas Tech University professor, tells the WSJ. The article specifies that the University of Texas at Austin has seen a 42 percent decline since its peak enrollment in 2015, and Texas A&M University has dropped 63.3 percent. Both schools' petroleum engineering programs are ranked No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, by U.S. News and World Report. Texas Tech, which ties with the University of Houston at No. 9 on the U.S. News report, has seen a 88.1 percent decline since its peak in 2015. UH data wasn't included in the article.

The article highlights declines at Colorado School of Mines (87.7 percent), Louisiana State University (89 percent), and University of Oklahoma (90 percent) since their peak enrollment in 2015.

A decline in future workforce for the energy industry would directly affect Houston's economy. According to the 2023 Houston Facts report from the Greater Houston Partnership, Houston held 23.8 percent of the nation’s jobs in oil and gas extraction (33,400 of 140,200) 17.0 percent of jobs in oil field services (33,600 of 198,100), and 9.6 percent of jobs in manufacturing of agricultural, construction and mining equipment (20,400 of 212,000), based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Barbara Burger tells the WSJ that new climatetech-focused startups have emerged and become more attractive to both college graduates and current oil and gas workforce. “There’s competition in a way that probably wasn’t there 15 years ago,” she shares.

The lack of college student pipeline paired with the diminishing workforce from emerging companies poses a challenge to incubant energy corporations, many of which have invested in programs at schools to better attract college graduates. The WSJ article points to BP's $4 million fellowship program with U.S. universities announced in February.

Just this week, Baker Hughes granted $100,000 to the University of Houston's Energy Transition Institute, which was founded last year with backing from Shell. In a recent interview with EnergyCapital, Joseph Powell, founding director of UH Energy Transition Institute, explains how the institute was founded to better engage with college students and bring them into the transitioning industry.

"It takes a lot of energy to process chemicals, plastics, and materials in a circular manner," he says. "Developing that workforce of the future means we need the students who want to engage in these efforts and making sure that those opportunities are available across the board to people of all different economic backgrounds in terms of participating in what is going to be just a tremendous growth engine for the future in terms of jobs and opportunities."

Clean energy jobs are already in Texas, and are ripe for the taking, according to a recent SmartAsset report that found that 2.23 percent of workers in the Houston area hold down jobs classified as “green.” While oil and gas positions are still paying top dollar, these clean energy jobs reportedly pay an average of 21 percent more than other jobs.

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A View From HETI

20-plus companies will pitch at Energy Tech Nexus' Pilotathon during Houston Energy & Climate Startup Week. Photo via Getty Images.

Energy Tech Nexus will host its Pilotathon and Showcase as part of Houston Energy & Climate Startup Week next Tuesday, Sept. 16, featuring insightful talks from industry leaders and pitches from an international group of companies in the clean energy space.

This year's event will center around the theme "Energy Access and Resilience." Attendees will hear pitches from nine Pilotathon pitch companies, as well as the 14 companies that were named to Energy Tech Nexus' COPILOT accelerator earlier this year.

COPILOT partners with Browning the Green Space, a nonprofit that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the clean energy and climatetech sectors. The Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN²) at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory backs the COPILOT accelerator, where companies are tasked with developing pilot projects for their innovations.

The nine Pilotathon pitch companies include:

  • Ontario-based AlumaPower, which has developed a breakthrough technology that converts the aluminum-air battery into a "galvanic generator," a long-duration energy source that runs on aluminum as a fuel
  • Calgary-based BioOilSolv, a chemical manufacturing company that has developed cutting-edge biomass-derived solvents
  • Atlanta-based Cultiv8 Fuels, which creates high-quality renewable fuel products derived from hemp
  • Newfoundland-based eDNAtec Inc., a leader in environmental genomics that analyzes biodiversity and ecological health
  • Oregon-based Espiku Inc., which designs and develops water treatment and mineral extraction technologies that rely on low-pressure evaporative cycles
  • New York-based Fast Metals Inc., which has developed a chemical process to extract valuable metals from complex toxic mine tailings that is capable of producing iron, aluminum, scandium, titanium and other rare earth elements using industrial waste and waste CO2 as inputs
  • New Jersey-based Metal Light Inc., which is building a circular, solid metal fuel that will serve as a replacement for diesel fuel
  • Glasgow-based Novosound, which designs and manufactures innovative ultrasound sensors using a thin-film technique to address the limitations of traditional ultrasound with applications in industrial, medical and wearable markets
  • Calgary-based Serenity Power, which has developed a cutting-edge solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology

The COPILOT accelerator companies include:

  • Accelerate Wind
  • Aquora Biosystems Inc.
  • EarthEn
  • Electromaim
  • EnKoat
  • GeoFuels
  • Harber Coatings Inc.
  • Janta Power
  • NanoSieve
  • PolyQor Inc.
  • Popper Power
  • Siva Powers America
  • ThermoShade
  • V-Glass Inc.

Read more about them here.

The Pilotathon will also include a keynote from Taylor Chapman, investment manager at New Climate Ventures; Deanna Zhang, CEO at V1 Climate Solutions; and Jolene Gurevich, director of fellowship experience at Breakthrough Energy. The Texas Climate Tech Collective will present its latest study on the Houston climate tech and innovation ecosystem.

CEOs Moji Karimi of Cemvita, Laureen Meroueh of Hertha Metals and others will also participate in a panel on successful pilots. Investors from NetZero Ventures, Halliburton Labs, Chevron, Saudi Aramco, Prithvi VC and other organizations will also be on-site. Find registration information here.

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