Environmental Health Engineering Degree
Students study how engineering principles solve environmental problems including water and air pollution, waste management, contaminated site remediation, and sustainable infrastructure design. Graduates typically pursue careers at environmental consulting firms, the EPA, water treatment facilities, and sustainability departments of major corporations. Growing environmental regulations and climate concerns drive steady demand and competitive salaries for environmental engineers.
What Environmental Health Engineering Graduates Do
Your degree puts you on the front lines of public and environmental health. Early in your career as an environmental engineer, you’ll spend your days at a contaminated site collecting soil samples, then head back to the office to model how pollutants are spreading and design a remediation system. Or, as a health and safety engineer, you might be on a manufacturing floor, redesigning equipment to reduce worker injuries and ensuring compliance with government standards.
With experience, you’ll move from executing tasks to leading them. After years of managing complex cleanup projects, you could become an engineering manager, responsible for multi-million dollar budgets and entire teams of junior engineers. For those with a passion for mentorship, the path to becoming a postsecondary engineering teacher is growing particularly fast, allowing you to train the next generation.
AI will significantly change how this work gets done. Expect software to automate routine tasks like initial data analysis from field samples and drafting standard compliance reports. Your job won't disappear, but it will evolve. Your value will shift toward validating AI-generated models, solving unique field problems that software can't handle, and making critical judgment calls on complex environmental challenges.
Common Career Paths
Where Environmental Health Engineering graduates typically work, ranked by salary. Salary ranges show 25th–75th percentile spread. This field has roughly 23,100 combined openings per year.
| Career Path | Salary Range | Openings/yr | Growth | AI Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Architectural and engineering managers | 14,500 | +3.8% | 41% | |
| Health and safety engineers, except mining safety engineers and inspectors | 1,500 | +4.4% | 54% | |
| Engineering teachers, postsecondary | 4,100 | +8.1% | 50% | |
| Environmental engineers | 3,000 | +3.9% | 56% |
Source: BLS Occupational Employment & Wage Statistics, May 2024. Salary range shows 25th–median–75th percentile (national).
Best Schools for Environmental Health Engineering
Top 20 of 47 schools ranked by DegreeOutlook Score. Click any row for full AI scenario analysis and earnings projections.
| # | School | DW Score | Earnings | ROI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA |
71 67–72 |
$82,197/yr | 18.5x |
| 2 | CUNY City College New York, NY |
69 66–70 |
$62,945/yr | 26.8x |
| 3 | Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus Atlanta, GA |
68 66–69 |
$70,008/yr | 17.5x |
| 4 | University of Wisconsin-Platteville Platteville, WI |
68 65–69 |
$69,490/yr | 21.5x |
| 5 | University of Florida Gainesville, FL |
68 65–69 |
$62,480/yr | 28.1x |
| 6 | Florida Gulf Coast University Fort Myers, FL |
68 66–69 |
$60,797/yr | 31.4x |
| 7 | California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt Arcata, CA |
67 65–68 |
$55,589/yr | 24.6x |
| 8 | Oregon State University-Cascades Campus Bend, OR |
66 64–67 |
$68,223/yr | 15.1x |
| 9 | Ohio State University-Main Campus Columbus, OH |
66 64–67 |
$67,938/yr | 15.3x |
| 10 | Oregon State University Corvallis, OR |
65 63–66 |
$68,223/yr | 14.0x |
| 11 | Colorado State University-Fort Collins Fort Collins, CO |
64 62–65 |
$66,109/yr | 14.1x |
| 12 | Clemson University Clemson, SC |
63 60–64 |
$68,363/yr | 11.6x |
| 13 | University of Delaware Newark, DE |
63 61–64 |
$65,634/yr | 11.8x |
| 14 | University of Colorado Boulder Boulder, CO |
63 61–64 |
$63,049/yr | 11.9x |
| 15 | University of California-Riverside Riverside, CA |
63 61–64 |
$59,309/yr | 13.5x |
| 16 | University at Buffalo Buffalo, NY |
63 61–65 |
$57,098/yr | 16.3x |
| 17 | Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ |
62 59–63 |
$62,936/yr | 12.9x |
| 18 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI |
62 60–63 |
$57,824/yr | 11.9x |
| 19 | Colorado School of Mines Golden, CO |
61 58–62 |
$69,102/yr | 8.9x |
| 20 | Missouri University of Science and Technology Rolla, MO |
61 59–62 |
$57,679/yr | 12.4x |
Highest Earning Environmental Health Engineering Programs
Schools where Environmental Health Engineering graduates earn the most in their first year after graduation.
| School | 1-Year Earnings | DW Score |
|---|---|---|
| California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo | $82,197/yr | 71 |
| Texas Tech University | $76,708/yr | 58 |
| Purdue University-Main Campus | $71,861/yr | 58 |
| Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus | $70,008/yr | 68 |
| Cornell University | $69,558/yr | 52 |
| University of Wisconsin-Platteville | $69,490/yr | 68 |
| Colorado School of Mines | $69,102/yr | 61 |
| Clemson University | $68,363/yr | 63 |
| Oregon State University-Cascades Campus | $68,223/yr | 66 |
| Oregon State University | $68,223/yr | 65 |
Best ROI for Environmental Health Engineering
Schools with the highest earnings-to-tuition ratio for Environmental Health Engineering.
| School | ROI Multiple | Earnings | DW Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Florida Gulf Coast University | 31.4x | $60,797/yr | 68 |
| University of Florida | 28.1x | $62,480/yr | 68 |
| CUNY City College | 26.8x | $62,945/yr | 69 |
| Kennesaw State University | 25.7x | $61,701/yr | 58 |
| California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt | 24.6x | $55,589/yr | 67 |
| Florida International University | 23.6x | $64,541/yr | 59 |
| University of Wisconsin-Platteville | 21.5x | $69,490/yr | 68 |
| University of Central Florida | 21.2x | $56,443/yr | 56 |
| San Diego State University | 19.0x | $66,482/yr | 58 |
| California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo | 18.5x | $82,197/yr | 71 |
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