Dramatic Enrollment Shifts Plague Petroleum Engineering Programs

Abstract

The sharp oil price volatility during 2014–16 is now being felt by US undergraduate petroleum engineering (PE) programs, where enrollment is in steep decline after hitting record highs at the onset of the price downturn. The number of US students pursuing bachelor’s degrees in PE programs fell to 6,263 in fall 2017 from 8,712 in fall 2016 as attitudes toward the discipline continued to shift, according to data compiled by Lloyd Heinze, PE professor at Texas Tech University’s Bob L. Herd Department of Petroleum Engineering. Enrollment in fall 2015 remained elevated at 11,069, slightly lower than a peak of 11,474 in fall 2014 when the oil price crash was under way—meaning it took 2 years before enrollment numbers began tracking oil prices. “Students are starting to realize the job market is very different from when they started out as freshmen,” said Heinze, who has followed PE enrollment trends for decades. A student who is slated to graduate with a BS in PE this spring, for example, likely enrolled in fall 2014 after West Texas Intermediate (WTI) prices had spent much of the year at more than $100/bbl. In their sophomore year, WTI cratered to $26/bbl before stabilizing in the $40-60/bbl range for their junior and senior years. With fewer students in the pipeline, fewer graduates are expected in the coming years, reversing an oversupply of those trying to enter the workforce. The number of undergraduate PE degrees granted is projected to plunge from more than 2,000 in each of 2015–16, 2016–17, and 2017–18 to around 1,220 in 2018–19 and 680 in 2019–20, Heinze’s data project. At 470 and 130, respectively, master’s degrees and PhDs granted are expected to remain somewhat elevated in 2017–18 compared with their averages during the previous decade. The steadier post-grad numbers may be supported in part by fewer available jobs. One Extreme to Another Heinze noted that Texas Tech’s PE department, like many PE departments across the country, is still reeling from the “tremendous overload” of students in recent years, a problem over which it had no control. “I can tell you that even if oil prices last year were $100/bbl, we were already on track to put out more students than $100/bbl can support.” Many public university PE programs are at the mercy of how many prospective students meet published admissions requirements. That is to say, programs cannot simply deny qualified students because those programs’ faculties, resources, and even lecture halls have become overextended. As a result, average undergraduate student-faculty ratios ballooned to about 46:1 in fall 2013.