At the age of 16, Katya Kondragunta has already experienced two disasters, exacerbated by climate change. California saw its first wildfires in 2020. Ash and smoke forced her family to remain in their home in the Bay Area city of Fremont for weeks.
They then moved to Prosper, Texas, where she experienced record heat last summer.
“We have had terrible heat waves and they have affected my daily life,” the high school student said. “I’m in cross country…I’m supposed to get out there every day and run and get my miles in.”
Kondragunta says she didn’t learn in school how climate change is amplifying these events, and she hopes this will change when she goes to college.
Increasingly, U.S. colleges are creating climate change programs to meet the demand of students who want to apply their firsthand experiences to what they do after high school and help find solutions.
“Many centers and departments have been rebranded or created around these climate issues, in part because they think it will attract students and faculty,” said Kathy Jacobs, director of the University of Arizona Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions. Launched a decade ago, it connects several climate programs at the Tucson school.
Other pioneers that have created programs, majors, minors and certificates in climate change include the University of Washington, Yale University, Utah State University, the University of Montana, Northern Vermont University and the University of California, Los Angeles. Columbia, the private university in New York City, opened its Climate School in 2020 with a degree in climate and society, and has related undergraduate programs in the works.
In the past four years alone, public Plymouth State University in New Hampshire, Iowa State, Nashville Ivy League Vanderbilt, Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and others have begun climate-related studies. Hampton University, a private, historically black university in Virginia, is now building one, and the University of Texas at Austin will offer it this fall.
The fact that climate change is affecting more and more people is one factor. The Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate investment in US history, plus climate-focused job growth are also gaining attention, experts say.
In these programs, students learn how the atmosphere is changing due to the burning of coal, oil and gas, the way crops will shift with the warming planet, and the role of renewable energy in reducing the use of fossil fuels.
They delve into how to communicate with the public about climate, the ethical and environmental aspects of climate solutions, and the role lawmakers and companies play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Students also cover disaster response and ways communities can prepare and adapt before climate change worsens. The offering requires faculty in biology, chemistry, physics and social sciences, among others.
“It’s not just about ‘oh yeah, climate, global warming, environmental stuff,’” said Lydia Conger, a senior who enrolled at Utah State specifically for climate science studies.
“It has interesting technical parts in math and physics, but also this element of geology,” she said, “and oceanography and ecology.”
When higher education institutions create their programs, they often draw on existing studies in meteorology and atmospheric sciences. Some house climate under the sustainability or environmental sciences departments. But the climate tracks must go further than these to satisfy some new students.
In Kennebunk, Maine, high school student Will Eagleson has experienced storms that caused coastal destruction. Sea levels are rising in his hometown. As the 17-year-old reflects on college, he said that to get his attention, schools must “narrow the study from environmental and earth sciences as a whole, to more climate change-oriented programs.”
For Lucia Everist, a senior at Edina High School in Minnesota who is frustrated with her own lack of climate education thus far, schools need to delve deeper into the human impact of climate change. She cited the disproportionate impact on Black, Latino, Indigenous and low-income neighborhoods.
“I looked at the curriculum itself a lot,” the 18-year-old said of her college search. Wherever she applied: ‘I made sure that the social aspect was addressed as well as the scientific aspect.’
Climate students need to learn everything from health care to storing clean solar and wind energy, says Megan Latshaw, who directs Johns Hopkins University’s graduate programs in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering. The school has a diploma in energy policy and climate, and also offers two certificates on climate change.
‘It’s the floods. It’s the heat waves. It’s the forest fires. It is the air pollution that is created when we burn fossil fuels. They’re allergies. It’s water scarcity and people who may have to flee where they’ve lived all their lives,” Latshaw says. She noted that the university is conducting research on weaving climate change into its schools of public health, engineering, education, medicine, nursing and more.
Another factor may be that many colleges across the country are facing declining enrollments and less public funding, forcing them to launch new degrees to stay relevant.
Many small, private colleges have been forced to close their doors over the past decade as fewer students graduated from high school and more opted for career-oriented education. The same pressures are hitting the systems of large public universities, which have cut academic programs and faculty to fill budget gaps.
“There is certainly a segment of academia that is simply responding to consumer demand,” said John Knox, undergraduate coordinator of the University of Georgia’s Atmospheric Sciences program, who is considering whether the school should offer a climate certificate. “At the end of the day, I’m more concerned about the success of our students than I am about marketing anything to anyone.”
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Associated Press News Editor Michael Melia of Connecticut contributed to this story.
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Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate solutions reporter. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.
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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental reporting receives funding from several private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s Standards for Working with Charities, a list of supporters, and funded coverage areas at AP.org.