Climate change and higher education: Assessing factors that affect curriculum requirements

Abstract

Pervasive misinformation about climate change might be reduced if colleges were to include the topic within general education curriculum. This paper analyzes the general education (or “core”) curriculum in the top 100 universities and liberal-arts colleges in the U.S. to assess the proportion of core courses that highlight climate change or climate science. The probability that a student takes at least one climate-change course via the core curriculum is estimated at 0.17 across all schools. The probability is higher at research universities than at liberal arts colleges, in core programs that have more science and social science courses, and at public universities in states with a Democrat-controlled legislature than in states with a Republican-controlled or split legislature. Drawing on cases of best practices in the U.S. identified from the data set, the authors discuss strategies that could ensure a higher likelihood that the core curriculum includes education on climate science and climate change. The study advances the broader research literature on sustainability in higher education programs by bringing it into conversation with research on the college core curriculum and by focusing both on the specific issue of climate-change education.