Here is a college quiz. While many parts of the U.S. economy struggle to recover from the Great Recession of 2008-09, one domestic industry is experiencing a technology-driven expansion in which American innovations have led to countless new company startups, a surge in hiring and some of the highest-paying entry-level jobs for graduating college seniors.

How are the nation's universities responding so students might prepare for a promising career in this growing and intellectually challenging field? By largely ignoring it. Why? Because the industry is oil and gas.

This fact may surprise the casual campus observer, since almost every U.S. college these days seems to have an energy research institute. Most of these energy think-tanks, however, are run by academic advocates of theories about global warming and man-made climate change, most of whom view energy through green-colored lenses. The research focus is more on promoting the clean, sustainable, renewable, non-CO2-emitting energy of the future, as opposed to studying and analyzing the hydrocarbon resources of the here and now.

Read the full article as published in The Wall Street Journal.