Family Life

10.17.11 | Jeremy Miller

The natural gas boom is beginning to impact the curriculum being offered on college campuses. Dozens of colleges and universities in the Northeast are moving to add new staff, academic majors or job-training courses in fields related to natural gas. through a new 3-year, 5-million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Labor, several community colleges in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York have formed a coalition called "Shalenet." It's focused on recruiting, training and placing people in high-priority natural gas occupations. A spokesperson for the Marcellus Shale Coalition says there's a cornucopia of community colleges and local workforce training programs across the Northeast that are working to create job skills that are going to be in high-demand for the next 50 years. Starting pay for natural gas workers can exceed $70,000 a year.