<p>It’s nice of Texas A&M to do this. There’s no way the sudden spike in Petroleum Engineering students is because everyone is suddenly passionate about oil production. The economy has been terrible for several years. There are smart kids who wants to become engineers, and many look at the published salary numbers to decide which specialty to choose. Petroleum Engineering pays about $20,000 a year higher than the next highest paying engineering degree. So, they take it as their major. But, so do a lot of other engineering students who have read the same reports. This results in a large spike of new graduates, when the number of jobs hasn’t significantly increased.</p>
<p>This causes the same problem to affect petroleum engineering that has affected most other college graduates in recent years: supply and demand of degree holders. As more petroleum engineers graduate, there will be more choices for employers, they can afford to pay new graduates less, and the number of good jobs will get filled before they run out of applicants. Eventually, if trends in enrollment continue, some newly graduated petroleum engineers will be forced to either work out of their field, or be under/unemployed.</p>
<p>Again, it’s kind of Texas A&M to at least WARN people that this could be coming down the line in the next 4 years.</p>