2025 Best Petroleum Engineering Doctor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region

a doctor's degree in petroleum engineering is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #104 out of 306 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.

For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 2 schools in the Southwest Region to determine which ones were the best for petroleum engineering students pursuing a doctor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 51 doctor's degrees in petroleum engineering to qualified students.

What's on this page: * Our Methodology

• Best Doctor’s Degree Schools List

Early-Career Earnings

One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of doctorate graduates during the early years of their career. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their doctor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.

Other Factors We Consider

The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.

• Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to petroleum engineering students as compared to other majors.
• Major Demand - The number of petroleum engineering students who choose to seek a doctor's degree at the school.
• Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
• Student Debt - How easy is it for petroleum engineering to pay back their student loans after receiving their doctor's degree.
• Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized petroleum engineering related body.

Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for petroleum engineering students working on their doctor's degree.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Petroleum Engineering Doctor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.

Best Schools for Doctorate Students to Study Petroleum Engineering in the Southwest Region

Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a doctor's degree in petroleum engineering.

Top Southwest Region Schools for a Doctorate in Petroleum Engineering

1

Texas A&M University - College Station
College Station, TX

12 Annual Graduates

Any student pursuing a degree in a doctor's degree in petroleum engineering needs to check out Texas A&M University - College Station. Texas A&M College Station is a very large public university located in the medium-sized city of College Station.More information about a doctorate in petroleum engineering from Texas A&M University - College Station

2

The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX

16 Annual Graduates

Every student who is interested in a doctor's degree in petroleum engineering has to take a look at The University of Texas at Austin. UT Austin is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Austin.More information about a doctorate in petroleum engineering from The University of Texas at Austin

Best Petroleum Engineering Colleges by State

Explore the best petroleum engineering schools for a specific state in the Southwest Region .

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Texas	165	56
Oklahoma	92	15
New Mexico	59	2

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Rankings in Majors Related to Petroleum Engineering

One of 41 majors within the Engineering area of study, Petroleum Engineering has other similar majors worth exploring.

Petroleum Engineering Focus Areas

Major	Annual Graduates
General Petroleum Engineering	51

Most Popular Majors Related to Petroleum Engineering

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Mechanical Engineering	226
Electrical Engineering	204
Civil Engineering	177
Biomedical Engineering	148
Chemical Engineering	138
Materials Engineering	111
Electrical and Computer Engineering.	88
General Engineering	76
Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering	52
Industrial Engineering	48

Notes and References

• The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
• The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
• Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard). More about our data sources and methodologies.