Environmental science students spend their days studying a crisis that is already underway. This can quickly dissolve into them reading the same bad news everyday, so why do they stay? A 2026 study suggests that this kind of distress can drain students’ motivation for school, but a student, professor and scientist say a sense of purpose is what keeps people in the field. The best way to push through is to get up and do something about it.  

The study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, surveyed 375 university students, and found that climate distress was linked to higher burnout and lower engagement through feeling that studying has no purpose. The authors call the effects small and because the survey captured one moment in time, it cannot prove the exact cause. The authors do ask whether programs that build student’s sense of agency could help, a question they say still needs testing.  

Rebecca Spring, a third-year environmental science major at Hunter College, said the mental toll is familiar, “It definitely weighs on me too, of course,” she said. “It does make it really hard for me to feel like I can plan the future, when I know it’s gonna be full of a lot of crisis and turmoil.”

Spring has been involved in climate work since she was 14, when she began volunteering with Extinction Rebellion DC and eventually ran the group’s social media and design, which meant messaging with chapters around the world and, she said, “really broadened my perspective.” At 16, she organized a protest outside the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Headquarters in Washington DC, with the group Debt for Climate. She knows her path is unusual. “I think it’s a bit unique how involved I am,” she said.

Still, she thinks that drive is common among her peers. “I feel like our generation is so driven by the activism part of things and wanting to make change that they’ll stick with it,” she said. 

She also sees contradictions in her own training. “They’re preparing us to do work under capitalism, and yet capitalism is what’s also destroying the environment.” She called it the biggest cognitive dissonance she is working through right now. 

Spring said her circle is limited to progressive people, so her view reflects one corner of campus. 

Finding productive solutions

Ana Baptista, an associate professor of environmental and climate justice at The New School, said activism can help keep students in the field. “It feels good to see that your efforts can join up with a collective experience,” she said, “even when that activism isn’t successful or it’s very difficult to get a win.” The process of “building relationships with other people or organizations towards a shared goal for the greater good” can be “extremely rewarding,” she said. And it’s open to everyone: “you can find big and large ways to show up and push for change.”

Baptista said community ties and her students keep her going too. She said she is “constantly learning from [her] students” and seeing the world through their perspective. 

Sheean Haley, a biological oceanographer at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said local action helps her carry the weight of the work. She cofounded an environmental stewardship committee on Lamont’s campus and is involved in municipal environmental groups, which she said gave her “very actionable, very local means by which to affect change.” 

Spring said she doesn’t know anyone who has left the major because of the strain. Climate anxiety comes with the subject either way, so many students would rather engage productively with environmental issues. “We’d rather feel like we can be doing work or making progress towards addressing the issue,” she said. According to Spring, it’s “still better than not being in it and just feeling totally hopeless.” 

Haley said the work itself helps. “My work is trying to answer some of those questions, so it helps that it’s really relevant,” she said.

Hope is a vital part of continuing the movement. For Baptista, it starts with people. “This is hard work but it’s worth it because we love our communities, our people, our homes,” she said.

Spring is more upfront about the fear that often arises. “I am hopeful, but I’m also a bit terrified,” she said. She thinks art helps movements, because it can “bring more people in, and keep the joy and the hope in the movement.”

Finances of the field

But hope doesn’t exactly pay the rent and Spring says she wants a stable income, though making the most money isn’t really her priority. She is considering working for an environmental nonprofit or in policy advocacy in New York. The best paying environmental jobs could mean consulting for fossil fuel companies, which she called “completely the opposite of what I want.”

Federal data suggests the field is steady but not quite booming. Environmental scientists and specialists earned a median of $82,220 in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which projects 4% job growth from 2024 to 2034, about as fast as the average for all occupations. Most entry-level jobs require a bachelor’s degree. 

However, those figures cover the job title, not everyone who studies the subject. Haley said students in her lab group who earned PhDs have gone into the biofuels industry, professorships at R1 and R2 universities, and editing at major scientific journals. 

The bad news will keep coming, and most in the field already know it. Spring is trying to learn as much as she can about the environment and the political and economic systems that affect it, so she’s ready to help rebuild when the pressure reaches a breaking point. Baptista leans on her community and her students. Haley keeps making changes where she can. For all three, hope is something you build by acting and continuing to move forward.