Freeport-McMoRan Commits $7 Million to Support Mining Engineering at UTEP
Investment will support establishment of Texas’ only mining engineering program
EL PASO, Texas (May 6, 2025) – The University of Texas at El Paso announced today a $7 million investment from mining industry leader Freeport-McMoRan to support UTEP’s planned re-start of the mining engineering degree program. The investment will support the program development and implementation as UTEP re-starts mining engineering to meet a national need.
“Mining is a $10 billion-plus industry in Texas . Energy that powers our electric system and aggregates that build our roads depend on mining. The smartphone in your pocket has about 30 elements in it including copper, gold, silver, lithium and cobalt as well as rare-earth elements that make the colors on the screen. America has a shortage of mining engineers who can find valuable minerals, get them out of the ground safely, and restore the land when mining is done ,” said UTEP President Heather Wilson. “We are so thankful that Freeport-McMoRan has partnered with us to expand mining engineering for Texas and the nation by educating the next generation of mining engineers.”
“There’s no better place to jumpstart the mining engineering workforce than UTEP, home of the Miners,” said Josh Olmsted, President and Chief Operating Officer-Americas at Freeport. “Our partnership with UTEP is long-standing, with a number of UTEP alumni working throughout our global operations. We look forward to working with even more talented UTEP graduates to produce the materials that the global economy demands as they restart mining engineering.”
In September 2024, UTEP announced its intention to relaunch its mining engineering program with a $20 million commitment from The University of Texas System Board of Regents. Pending approval from UTEP’ s accreditors and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the program is slated to launch in Fall 2027 and will ramp up to admit 120 freshman every year with the goal of graduating 100 mining engineers annually once fully established. UTEP will be the only university in the Texas to offer mining engineering .
The new program aims to fill a gap in the mining workforce. In 2023, U.S. universities graduated only 312 mining engineers, but there will be an estimated 500 job openings annually over the next 10 years. The restart of the mining engineering program at UTEP will help close this gap.
Mining is a $700 billion industry in the U.S. and more than a $10 billion industry in Texas alone.
“UTEP will play a pivotal role in developing our nation’s workforce for this industry,” said Ken Meissner, Ph.D., dean of the College of Engineering. “We are thankful to Freeport-McMoRan for this transformational gift in support of our students and future mining engineers.”
The UTEP College of Engineering enrolls more than 5,000 students, 70% of whom are fluently bilingual — an advantage for a global industry.
The forthcoming degree is a return to UTEP’s roots. UTEP was founded as a mining school in 1914, but the program ended in 1964 likely as the demand for mining engineers in the region declined with swings in the copper market in the region. Since then, UTEP has become a major research university developing top talent for Texas and the nation, offering over 170 degree programs. The University has continued to teach related disciplines including geology, civil engineering, metallurgy and environmental science, which will make the reestablishment of mining engineering a good fit.
One of the top mining companies in the world, Freeport -McMoRan is a major producer of copper and gold, as well as the world’s largest producer of molybdenum, a chemical element commonly used to make steel combined with other elements (known as a steel alloy). The company is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, and operates across North America, South America, Europe and Indonesia.
Freeport-McMoRan has recruited UTEP graduates for many years and values the work ethic of its well-prepared engineers.
About The University of Texas at El Paso
The University of Texas at El Paso is America’s leading Hispanic-serving university. Located at the westernmost tip of Texas, where three states and two countries converge along the Rio Grande, 84% of our 25,000 students are Hispanic, and more than half are the first in their families to go to college. UTEP offers 171 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs at the only open-access, top-tier research university in America.
Last Updated on May 06, 2025 at 12:00 AM | Originally published May 06, 2025
By MC Staff UTEP Marketing and Communications
