Park Ranger / Conservation Officer
Also known as: Park Naturalist, Game Warden, Wildlife Officer, Interpretive Park Ranger
Protect natural areas, educate visitors, and manage wildlife in national and state parks.
Salary Range
The highest-paid specialization or seniority level for park ranger / conservation officers.
About 1 in 333 reaches this level
The NPS has ~63 national-park superintendents; out of ~20K NPS ranger-type staff (est., no BLS code), that's about 1 in 300. These are GS-14/GS-15 positions: with locality, federal pay reaches roughly $190K (GS-15 step 10 is $192,331 in the lowest-cost locality, OPM 2026), just under the 2026 GS ceiling (Executive Schedule Level IV, $197,200). Entry reflects a GS-5 ranger post, the grade a bachelor's degree qualifies for: $40,736 in that same locality (OPM 2026).
Salary data based on 2025 BLS, Glassdoor, and industry reports. Actual compensation varies by location, experience, and employer.
How to Become One
This career typically requires a bachelor's degree. Here are the top colleges for it:
Cost to Qualify
Four years of tuition and required fees runs about $56K at a typical public college in our list (in-state) and about $288K at a typical private one. Both are pricier than the US national averages (about $48K public in-state, $180K private nonprofit, College Board 2025-26) because our 161-college dataset only includes nationally-ranked schools, not every US college. This excludes room and board, which we show separately on each college's page.
Sticker price, not what most people pay — scholarships, aid and in-state status all move it. Room and board is shown separately on each college's page.
AI Risk Assessment
Park rangers and conservation officers work outdoors: patrolling parks and wildlife areas, helping and teaching visitors, enforcing hunting, fishing and park rules, and responding when something goes wrong. AI cannot do that. Technology helps in the background: BLS notes that conservation scientists use drones, aerial photos, satellite images and mapping software to survey large areas of land. That is the rubric's "1 Minimal": AI cannot do the core work.
The real challenge in this career is not AI but the number of jobs. The government has no single "park ranger" job code. Interpretive park rangers, the ones who lead programs and teach visitors, are counted with conservation scientists, a group of about 27,700 jobs that BLS projects to grow 5% from 2025 to 2035. Conservation officers are counted as fish and game wardens, a job held by only about 6,200 people that BLS projects to shrink 6% by 2035. For law enforcement jobs like these, BLS says demand depends largely on state and local budgets. Expect competition for a small number of government jobs.
What would change this score. If parks and wildlife agencies start using cameras, drones and AI monitoring to replace patrols rather than support them, this would move to 2. Nothing we have found points that way.
Sources
Ratings reflect a 10-year outlook based on 2025-2026 research, weighted toward entry-level impact. Individual outcomes will vary.
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