BLACK GOLD
Students thirst for Texas tea as energy booms.
Written by Cory Chandler
Lloyd Heinze gathers enrollment data from petroleum engineering programs across the country to develop annual reports for the Society of Petroleum Engineers. As booms and busts have shaken the industry, this chairman of Texas Tech’s Department of Petroleum Engineering has watched many of these programs fold under sagging enrollment.
Yet today his graphs show an encouraging trend: Enrollment is on the rise as oil and gas booms again. Demand is soaring, prices are surging and so, too, is the business of training tomorrow’s petroleum engineers.
Nearly 2,500 undergraduate students nationwide enrolled in petroleum engineering programs for the 2006 academic year, according to Heinze’s data. This is the largest enrollment since 1987. At Texas Tech, undergraduate enrollment leaped from as few as 60 students in the 1991 academic year to 290 today.
Demand is so high, in fact, that the department added a doctoral program in 2001 to advance the program and boost research.
Heinze’s enrollment figures, which stretch back to 1972, reveal a dramatic trend line that follows the fortunes of the industry.(see chart) After leaping to an eye-popping peak of more than 12,000 students nationwide, including grad students, in 1984, enrollment in petroleum engineering programs skidded to fewer than 2,000 by 1991. Heinze points out that the mid-‘80s surge reflects a growth in all engineering fields during that time as the country experienced a techno-blitz.
Still, the numbers do echo the highs and lows of the energy business. Comparing enrollment data to the Energy Information Association’s calculation of net income for major U.S. energy companies, student interest does seem to coincide with profitable years.
The sharp rise in enrollment leading to the 1984 peak rode a heady period in which the U.S. energy companies netted as much as $31 billion a year, roughly $9 billion more than the average from 1974 to 2003. The ensuing economic slump that lasted through the rest of that decade and much of the ’90s matched a period of depressed national enrollment. Both sets of numbers are now on the rise again.
Story produced by the Office of Communications and Marketing,
806-742-2136
Photos by Neal Hinkle
Web layout by Jon Fox
“(Oil and gas) prices are obviously a factor,” Heinze says. “Arguably, you can track student demand by price.”
With today’s sky-high oil prices, the students themselves are a sought-after commodity. A Texas Tech graduate holding a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering is virtually guaranteed employment and a starting annual salary averaging $73,000.
And the news just gets better. Since the bulk of petroleum engineers working today are approaching retirement—the average age of a Society of Petroleum Engineers member is around 52—this fresh crop of engineers will have a great opportunity to advance quickly, Heinze says.
Add to this the lure of exotic job locations and the fact that countries around the world are clamoring for more oil than ever, and Heinze believes the upswing will continue. He hopes this will happen at a slow, sustainable rate rather than in a bubble like the one that emerged in 1984.
And the true test: Would Heinze want his own children to go into the field?
“I think prospects for the petroleum industry are great,” he says. “I would suggest that my son or daughter get into the industry.”