Waning Interest Doesn’t Slow UT’s Roll in Petroleum Program

There are only a handful of petroleum engineering programs in the country, and their class sizes are dwindling

Texas' roots in the American oil and gas industry are as deep as its wells (i.e., earth-shatteringly deep).

UT-Austin's Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department currently boasts the top graduate and undergraduate petroleum engineering programs in the nation. Many of its students have gone on to top executive careers in the gas and oil industry. But nationwide, despite the success and high pay associated with the field, the oil industry is addressing record low graduation rates in 2022. Bloomberg reported an 83% national decline in petroleum engineering graduates from 2017 to 2022, per data gathered by a Texas Tech professor. Even though the major has historically seen fluctuations parallel to changing oil prices, the future of sustainable energy usage is likely behind the nosedive.

Scott Lindberg, who recently graduated from UT's petroleum engineering program, told Bloomberg he'd decided to go to law school rather than the oil industry after graduation because he was "concerned that if we eventually get to a point where fossil fuels are so disfavored that the jobs simply don't exist before I plan to retire."

Despite uncertainty, UT's department appears to be anything but slowing down. With the Gary L. Thomas Energy Engineering Building opened in 2021 and a new Engineer­ing Discovery Building (estimated to cost $169 million) set to replace the Petroleum and Chemical Engineering building, it seems the university is investing in the future of a department on shaky ground. Undergraduate enrollment in the program remains relatively stable at UT, but graduate student enrollment has dipped. The program is working to entice applicants by showing them the field will still play an important role in the changing energy landscape.

As students seek out meaningful career paths more than ever, Eric Van Oort, a petroleum engineering professor at UT, said the program must continue to offer more sustainability coursework and show students that the major encompasses more than just petroleum engineering. "Students are looking for more than just a very healthy paycheck," he said. "They also want to be part of the solution rather than the problem."

Matthew Bagtas, a petroleum engineering student at UT minoring in sustainable energy, is hoping he can help change the world. "I really want to be at the forefront of this energy transition ... I feel like deep down there's always that little piece inside of me that's like, what if ... oil and gas suddenly goes zero?" Bagtas said. "The department has been assuring us that there is still a necessity for petroleum engineers, at least for our generation."

Department head Jon Olson pointed to the introduction of the sustainable energy minor last year. The department is also offering coursework focused on more sustainable processes such as geothermal engineering and carbon capture and storage. Olson said they're introducing new data science courses to equip students who may go on to work at financial firms and tech companies. "The path that we're trying to put our students on is that they're going to be qualified to do oil and gas extraction, but they could pivot," he said.

Thomas Edgar, a retired chemical engineering professor and former director of UT's Energy Institute, said in an email that a major transition is required before renewable energy can be the main U.S. energy source. Until then, he sees a continued need for petroleum engineers while still expecting enrollment to keep trending downward. His own son received a petroleum engineering degree from UT and currently works in the oil industry, and Edgar said petroleum engineers are well equipped to address carbon capture and storage along with geothermal engineering as a "long term, large-scale solution" to reducing U.S. carbon emissions.