Texas high – In Midland and Houston, Texas schools are expanding oil-and-gas career pathways through partnerships with colleges and energy companies—while critics warn industry influence is reshaping what students learn, including setbacks for climate science in state text
MIDLAND, Texas — Dylan Ruiz leaned into a training scenario in a Midland classroom, watching pumps and valves simulate the flow of liquids and the kind of pressure changes that can go wrong in the oil patch.
The 17-year-old. a senior at Legacy High School. is among about 100 students earning dual high school and college credits through Midland College’s Petroleum Energy Program.. The courses cover the basics of oil and gas production. and Ruiz is aiming for a future as a petroleum engineer—an ambition he connects to his family’s experience with a boom-and-bust industry.
“It’s a boom-and-bust economy. but you can see the profits undeniably. ” Ruiz said. describing how his father. who entered the industry without a college degree. was laid off a few times.. Now. Ruiz says the family is betting that Donald Trump’s pledge to boost fossil fuel extraction will bring steadier work.
For more than a decade. as oil and gas workers have approached retirement. the industry has poured millions of dollars into Texas K-12 education. funding programs designed to train younger students.. Some educators now say those efforts are picking up again as the Trump administration pledges to ramp up fossil fuel extraction—at a moment when the country’s broader energy transition has been shifting.
In Texas, oil and natural gas jobs are among the highest-paying roles.. The Texas Workforce Commission’s latest figures show those jobs averaging about $86. 298 in 2024. and the Petroleum Energy Program is largely built to prepare students for technician work that supports scientists and engineers in finding and extracting oil and gas.
“We need those workers. ” said Kathy Shannon. an oil and gas education advocate who retired in 2023 as the longtime executive director of the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum in Midland.. The museum works with the school district to promote STEM education and jobs in the industry.. Shannon said the goal is to “entice these kiddos and teach them about the industry and why it’s a great living.”
Texas is one of a handful of states — including California. New Mexico. Ohio. Oklahoma and Pennsylvania — that offer courses in the oil and gas industry for high school students.. The approach is part of a wider pattern of companies working more closely with school districts. trying to align student training with business needs.. Critics. though. say the industry’s growing presence in classrooms comes with risks. pointing to environmental harms and a long history of pushing into schools.
“The oil and gas industry definitely wants voters and policymakers in the next generation to be sympathetic to the concerns of the fossil fuel industry. ” said Glenn Branch. deputy director of the National Center for Science Education. a nonprofit that advocates for accurate and effective science instruction.. Branch said the industry’s push into public schools dates back as early as the 1940s.
Midland sits in the heart of the Permian Basin, a flat, largely dry landscape in West Texas.. The nearest natural body of water is more than an hour’s drive away.. In town. residents talk about the pumpjacks—symbols of prosperity that bow their bulky heads and pull oil from the earth—with more emotion than geography.
That local identity is part of how the Petroleum Energy Program took shape.. In 2015. Midland Independent School District and Midland College worked with local oil and gas companies to create the Petroleum Energy Program. then known as the Petroleum Academy.. Erick Gutierrez. a department chair at Midland College who helps lead the program. said the idea is to prepare the next generation of oil and gas workers who can be hired right after high school.
The program’s expansion is tied to changes lawmakers made at the state level.. Gutierrez’s program took off after Texas lawmakers passed legislation in 2013 to expand career-oriented classes in high school and encourage students to pursue industry certifications.. Since then. the state’s officials have passed two more bills. in 2023 and 2025. aimed at further expanding student access to career training programs and to classes that allow students to earn dual high school and college credit. while reducing the number of state standardized tests students are required to take to graduate.
Midland College has recorded 1,098 enrollments by high school students in its Petroleum Energy Program’s dual credit courses since 2018.. The number peaked at 211 in 2020-21 and has since fallen to 93 this academic year.. College administrators say they hope renewed federal pressure on oil and gas will help reverse the decline.
As the district looks to the future, Midland voters have also backed new infrastructure.. Using a $1.4 billion bond approved by taxpayers. Midland school district is building a new high school. set to open in August 2028.. The district also plans to expand STEM education on that campus through a partnership with Chevron.. Chevron provided $145. 000 to expand coursework and training and create more opportunities for students to work in the oil and gas industry.
Even within Midland College, the industry’s footprint is visible.. The hallways of the college are lined with banners featuring Diamondback Energy. an oil and gas company headquartered in the city.. Industry representatives sit on the energy education program’s board and also host job fairs, workshops, field trips and presentations.. Gutierrez said most faculty and staff in the Petroleum Energy Program are current or former oil and gas industry employees.. Gutierrez. who worked in Midland’s oil patch in the early 2000s before joining the school in 2012. said industry representatives help shape a curriculum designed to prepare students for entry-level roles such as lease operator. lease manager and general field service technician.
Students learn how to maintain, repair and troubleshoot equipment using training simulators, he said, as a way to prepare them for the high-risk environment of the oil and gas industry.
For students who want to continue beyond high school—jobs that require bachelor’s degrees such as petroleum engineers, geologists and surveyors—companies like Chevron provide scholarships to cover costs.
Gutierrez said the mood among students has shifted. When he first started teaching at the school, many students dreamed of leaving Midland because of a challenging job market. But now, with Trump’s pledge to “drill, baby, drill,” more students are deciding to stay.
“You don’t see as much of a boom and bust anymore, you see consistency,” Gutierrez said. “Companies will run very lean in order to prevent layoffs.”
He acknowledged that some students have concerns about working for an industry that harms the environment. Gutierrez added that some of the program’s classes discuss ways the industry says it is working to reduce its carbon footprint.
The tension between energy growth and climate instruction is also playing out in Texas classrooms, but in a different arena.. Under the Biden administration. jobs in renewable energy grew faster than the rest of the economy. while oil and gas employment fell.. Federal green energy tax credits helped drive that surge and enticed young people to participate in the country’s energy transition.. But the boom slowed after Trump’s deep cuts to those Biden-era clean energy incentives. though the growth in clean energy jobs has still outpaced the general economy.
Eight hours by car from Midland. at Houston’s Energy Institute High School. students can choose courses in engineering and alternative energy.. The magnet school opened its doors in 2013 during an oil boom. and donations from Phillips 66. BP and other energy companies help supplement state funding for the higher costs of providing the school’s required technology and teacher training.
Principal Lori Lambropoulos said contributions from the oil and gas industry are key to maintaining what she calls high-quality. hands-on education.. While she said competition for these donations has gotten tougher in recent years as more Houston public schools opened STEM programs. she said BP remains a major funder and sponsors the school’s student lounge.. The company’s logo is on a wall near the school’s entrance.
Alexander Hernandez graduated from Energy Institute in 2024.. He said in a 2023 interview that he was drawn to the school not because he wanted to work in the oil and gas industry. but because it was the best high school in Houston’s Third Ward. where he lived.. Hernandez is now enrolled at Harvard University, studying neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s.
At Energy Institute, the school’s partnerships can also reach beyond fossil fuel extraction.. This past fall. students in teacher Calvin Mark’s senior capstone class were in the early stages of designing a prototype of a flood protection system for Cheniere Energy.. The liquefied natural gas company’s facility is near the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and “routinely floods. ” according to senior Ramon Khattar Hatem.
“They’re really worried about the facility flooding, and they wanted teams at Energy to make and design a flood protection system,” Hatem said. Mark added that Cheniere Energy contacted him on LinkedIn to express interest in having students from the high school as interns.
Hatem said he wants to go to college to study engineering—possibly even environmental engineering.
In Texas. as oil and gas companies expand students’ access to career pathways in the sector. some opportunities to learn about environmental harms in school are narrowing.. The Republican-controlled Texas State Board of Education voted in 2023 to remove climate science lessons from most of its proposed textbooks for eighth graders.. Board members expressed concern about how publishers depicted climate change. with some arguing that textbooks offered unfair portrayals of the oil and gas industry.
More than 1,000 public school districts in Texas are not required to use the state board’s approved textbooks, but many do to stay in compliance with state curriculum standards.
More than a dozen oil and gas companies, lobbying groups and professional organizations also try to shape students’ career plans by funding statewide networks that support scholarships, pro-fossil-fuel curriculum and learning opportunities at museums and other institutions.
One example is the Dallas-based nonprofit Texas Energy Council, which offers college scholarships to students interested in energy-related fields.. It also partners with industry-related museums across the state. including the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum. on industry job fairs. classroom speakers and other outreach.. Shannon said these programs help children develop interest in STEM early—and build positive associations with oil and gas that could eventually lead them to enter the industry.
“We have to have the dreamers, but we have to have the workers,” she said.
In 2025, the museum received a $50,000 grant from Exxon to provide free admission to local students. It also hosts free Family Science Nights four times a year staffed by volunteers from Chevron.
A Houston-based nonprofit. the Energy Education Foundation. offers free traveling exhibits designed to educate students in grades 5-8 about careers in oil and gas.. Teachers can sign up online to bring the nonprofit to their schools.. During events. students receive a tablet with learning modules on what it’s like to work in the oil and gas industry.. The foundation. which in 1997 opened an offshore drilling rig museum aimed at kids in nearby Galveston. plans to further expand the exhibits.
“The east, west, north, wherever we can,” said Fernando Hinojosa, the foundation’s director of education and museum operations until late last year. “Energy is an international topic, so, yeah, maybe going international one day.”
For Ruiz, the Midland senior, the debate about the industry’s risks has landed in a personal place.. He said he has heard oil and gas is dangerous. but he is confident the safety classes he’s taken through the Petroleum Energy Program have prepared him for a job in the industry.. Ruiz said he may stay on at Midland College to earn an associate’s degree. pointing out that scholarships are available. or he could enter the workforce right after graduation. possibly at Diamondback.
“I see them around campus a lot, both here and in Legacy, because they sponsor the equipment, the computers and whatnot,” Ruiz said.
Regardless of the company, Ruiz said he wants a job with purpose. His father’s message, he said, has been consistent.
“My dad, he’s always telling me, ‘Go to college, get a good degree, get a good job,’ and, ‘You could do better than me,’” Ruiz said. “He sees that I want to go into oil and gas around here, and he thinks it’s a good path.”
The pattern is hard to miss in the way these programs move: Texas lawmakers have expanded career-oriented high school options and dual credit while reducing required standardized tests. and at the same time industry-linked partnerships and funding—from scholarships to simulator-based training—have kept growing. even as the Texas State Board of Education voted in 2023 to remove most climate science lessons from its proposed eighth-grade textbooks.
Editor’s note: The Hechinger Report produced this story about oil and gas jobs as a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. MISRYOUM re-published it under a Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Texas education oil and gas careers dual credit Midland College Petroleum Energy Program climate science textbooks Texas State Board of Education Energy Institute High School Chevron Exxon Permian Basin Petroleum Museum