President Trump at an August 7 industry roundtable announced over $180 million in investments to bolster the nation’s universities that still have mining engineering and other mining-related programs. The President also announced over $2 billion in investments in mining and mining-related projects nationwide.
The actions build on the February Critical Minerals Ministerial, at which multiple Trump Cabinet members hosted representatives of 54 countries and the European Commission as a first step in reshaping the global market for critical minerals and rare-earths.
The $180 million for mining education, however, may be the linchpin for ensuring a skilled domestic workforce to revitalize a major U.S. industry whose decline was spurred by environmentalists damning mining as a “polluter.”
The Clinton administration abolished the Bureau of Mines in 1996, ending its 85 years of informing U.S. minerals policy. Ray Anderson, the co-chair of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, said that “taking anything from the earth that is not naturally and rapidly renewable” (oil and gas, all mining) harms the biosphere.
Such utopian ideals may work in a bubble but not in the cutthroat reality of global competition.
The Trump approach to critical minerals marks a 180-degree turn from that of the Obama and Biden administrations, which touted “bipartisan” efforts to foster a domestic supply chain but enacted rigorous environmental regulations that slowed mining sector growth.
The cost of neglect was highlighted in a 2024 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine workshop entitled, “Building Capacity for the U.S. Mineral Resources Workforce.”
At the meeting, mining engineering professor Vladislav Kecojevic and Chris Keane from American Geosciences Institute lamented the dramatic downturn in enrollment at the remaining 14 U.S. universities with mining engineering programs. They urged passage of the Technology Grants to Strengthen Domestic Mining Education Act of 2023, saying it could help turn things around – as America was not graduating enough mining engineers.
The legislation would have authorized annual grants from the Department of Energy to mining schools to strengthen domestic mining education and support recruiting and educating the next generation of mining engineers and other qualified professionals to meet U.S. energy and mineral needs. It would also have established a Mining Professional Development Advisory Board to advise the DOE on grant programs.
Sadly, but not surprisingly, the bill died. Other mining bills, like the SECURE Minerals Act of 2026, which would codify the Trump critical minerals policy and authorize $2.5 billion for “the Strategic Resilience Reserve Corporation of the United States,” languish in a do-little Congress.
The Trump team is not waiting around for Congress. Instead, the Department of Energy just launched a $100 million grant program aimed at expanding the mining and critical minerals academic and skills trades workforce by dramatically increasing the number of people with degrees in those areas.
At the same time, the Department of War is investing over $80 million to bolster mining and metallurgy programs at five universities. The grants are aimed at reversing a longstanding decline in the number of U.S. mining students – which dropped from 1,500 in 2015 to just 312 graduates in 2025 – well below replacement numbers and wholly inadequate for a revitalized domestic mining industry.
The investments will be used to build technology innovation hubs form project-focused partnerships between students and the defense industry, develop new processes and prototypes, and certify hundreds of new students with advanced degrees in mining, geology, and metallurgy.
The Colorado School of Mines will receive $32.7 million for a Critical Minerals Innovation and Commercialization Hub that President Paul C. Johnson says will enable turning laboratory breakthroughs into market solutions while training the mining workforce America needs.
The Hub will bring together government, industry, entrepreneurs, researchers, and students to test and scale new technologies for minerals processing, recovery, refining, recycling and advanced materials — and ultimately move those technologies into the domestic supply chain.
Another $25 million was awarded to the Critical Minerals Merit Scholars Consortium, a collaborative effort between the South Dakota School of Mines, the University of Kentucky and Missouri S&T University.
The Merit Scholars Consortium is tasked with establishing four integrated workforce development programs designed to build technology innovation hubs for mining, geology, and metallurgy, create project-focused partnerships between students and the defense industry, and develop new processes, prototypes, and advanced degrees in critical mineral fields.
Another $23.6 million will go to Johns Hopkins University to found a multi-material recycling innovation hub connecting the emerging technology developer AGILEWorks for scrap sourcing, process innovation, testing, qualification, and integration into existing defense platforms.
As Professor Kecojevic said in 2024, the mining profession has suffered from attacks by environmentalists that have left students discouraged from seeking careers in mining engineering. Mining professors worldwide say students have little exposure to and knowledge about the modern mining industry. They are plagued by concerns that the mining industry is unsafe, unhealthy, damages the environment, and contributes to climate change.
The perception is that only coal mines are hiring mining engineers and that the industry only offers limited and narrow employment ladders and only in remote locations, that females are discouraged from the industry, and that mining is not family friendly.
“Moving forward,” Kecojevic said then, “I think there needs to be a radical rethink of the way we approach student recruitment and retention. Traditional recruiting approaches, including social media efforts, aren’t working. We need help from areas outside of mining,” including marketing and psychology, collaborations with high-profile individuals, and investing on K-12 science education.
The White House grants program could not have been more timely – and more needed.
The Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration says the shortage in qualified industry professionals could lead to mining project cost overruns and even impact workplace safety. The demand for mining and mineral engineering professionals, the Society said, has increased beyond the current educational capacity – and federal funding is vital to addressing these deficiencies.
That the nation has shrunk from 40 institutions with mining engineering programs to just 14 – none in the nation’s four largest states by population — is a bitter pill, but UTEP President Heather Wilson said at the 2024 workshop that starting a new mining engineering program takes about five years to reach financial sustainability and seven to reach steady-state enrollment.
UTEP, which shuttered its mining engineering program in 1964 but has a strong foundation in geosciences, environmental science, and civil engineering, is restarting a degree program in 2027. The program, fueled by more than $52 million in combined investments, intends to graduate 100 students a year, providing a major help toward bridging the employment gap.
These new initiatives may help turn the tide for mining engineering student enrollment, but mining proponents still have a long way to go to make mining sexy again.
This article originally appeared at Real Clear Energy