Archaeology students are just like all other college students. They are going to college because they know it will help them get a better job after graduation. College students do care about education. And they want to learn. But they’re not spending upwards of $27,000 just to learn. They are all doing it because they know it will get them a better job than they’d otherwise get without a college degree.
Similarly, the cultural resource management archaeology industry has been complaining that universities are not teaching the sort of skills necessary to do CRM archaeology. Since the 1960s, CRMers have been cajoling universities to teach workplace skills. Now there is a movement to build CRM archaeology training programs that are independent of universities because the CRM industry realizes much of what is learned in college is worthless for CRM.
The archaeology industry is not alone. I’ve been seeing all sorts of videos and articles talking about how college is worthless. How a college degree no longer pays off. That young people are better off going into the trades since those jobs can’t be replaced with artificial intelligence (AI) because they center upon activities that only a human being can do.
As a college professor I have three responses to that line of reasoning:
1) A college degree is about lifetime earnings: An adult with a college degree can expect to make between $600,000 and $1,000,000 more dollars across their lifetime than an adult with only a high school diploma. And the lifetime earnings gap between college degree and high school diploma is growing. Additionally, folks with graduate degrees can expect to earn even more than someone with a Bachelors, definitely more than someone with a high school diploma (even folks with graduate degrees in Anthropology). They’re also more likely to have a job with benefits.
What are you going to do to feed yourself when you’re too old to work in construction? If you’re lucky you’ll transition to a job that requires your mind more than your body. You’re more likely to get a job that uses your mind if you have a college degree. And college is never going to be cheaper than it is today.
2) A job in the trades will break your body: There’s a reason why our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents wanted us to get white collar jobs. It’s because stuff like farmwork, sharecropping, and being a construction laborer is hard on the body. Jobs in the trades are strenuous. They also expose you to dust, chemicals, extreme environments, and can lead to long-term ailments (Kinda like being an archaeologist 😉
Most people can’t keep doing these physical jobs after 45 years old, but the average American lives to 79 years old. How are you going to feed yourself for the remaining 34 years of your life if you spent 25 years working a trade job and got no higher education? Who’s going to pay you to work in the office with all the other college-educated administrators of your trade job company if you don’t have a college degree? How are you going to land a job with health benefits, which will be critical after all the wear and tear your body has taken throughout your career in the trades?
Unless you were amazing with your money and landed an extremely high paying trade job, you’re probably not going to be ready for retirement at 45 years old. That’s when your work experience + a college degree will make you eligible for those white-collar positions. If you work in the trades but also have a college degree, your blue-collar experience will make you an absolute unicorn because you can relate to the working folks but have the education that qualifies you for management positions. This is exactly what you want by the time you’re middle aged if you want to be able to stay in the workforce.
3) I’ve already heard something like this before: The clarion call for careers in the trades sounds something like the “coding-is-the-most-important-thing-you-can-learn” serenade that has been playing all throughout the 2000s. Remember how they were telling us all we needed to learn how to code? That working in tech was the coolest career in the country. That anyone who studied anything other than computer science, engineering, law, medicine, or business was wasting their time and money? Well, guess what jobs can be done by AI? Computer science, engineering, law, and business (we’re not quite there with medicine).
The reality is AI can’t actually do those jobs but the companies that hire computer science, engineering, law, and business majors think they can. So, they’re not hiring recent graduates for those jobs anymore. They’re also laying off thousands of employees in those industries and using AI as the smoke screen that is supposed to blind us from the straight stock boost that these layoffs are really all about. The layoffs reduce overhead, which makes it look like these companies are more profitable, but they’re going to have to re-hire lots of today’s laid off folks. The major companies are hoping they can re-hire desperate unemployed folks at lower wages with less benefits which will save them money in the long run (This is why unionizing is critical for today’s workforce).
Plus, the trades are also about to face a huge bubble. Folks are following the “go-get-a-trade-job” advice and thousands have flocked to trade schools. Soon the supply of graduates from these programs will be greater than the demand for trade jobs. As is the case with every industry, specialization, skills, networking, and experience remains the truest pathway to a good paying job with benefits:
College students are not stupid and they’re not going to college simply to learn. They see the writing on the wall and have realized previously lucrative and competitive majors are unlikely to yield high paying jobs right after graduation. The national drop in computer science majors is an excellent example of how overproduction leads to diminishing returns which leads to students changing course on what they’re willing to study.
I wrote this blog post after reading the recent article “UC Berkeley CS major enrollment on pace to drop by 59% as part of nationwide trend.” (FYI: I teach at UC Berkeley so I’m watching this unfold in real time. Also, my thoughts do not reflect those of my employer.) This decrease in CS majors is due to students realizing this major isn’t a fast-track to a high paying job in Silicon Valley. It is also due to the increased cost of graduate student instructors that used to work as teaching assistants for the larger undergraduate courses.
The most recent negotiated deal with the unionized PhD students in the University of California system means academic departments must pay each grad student a higher salary but the university has not provided much in the way of additional funding to cover these increases. This means departments will have fewer and fewer PhD students, which means there will be fewer TAs and class sizes could get smaller. Students will struggle to get seats in the courses they need to complete their degrees. It’s a Gordian Knot that is part of a positive feedback system that will force a reevaluation of the higher education system in California but that’s only one aspect of the decrease in CS majors.
Until recently, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) majors were poised to take over the UC System. STEM majors were about 44% of all undergraduates in 2026 and the university was making huge investments in expanding this even further. In 2024, Berkeley created the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society and immediately started building a huge palace to house it. Called “The Gateway,” the new Computer Science building cost a cool $550,000,000 and it will be finished in a year when the University of California system is facing a $500,000,000 budget deficit. (Don’t worry. The Gateway isn’t the reason why the UC System is in deficit and not building it wouldn’t have fixed the fact that the university system will have to make budget cuts. The real problem is people with kids leave California once they get old enough for school because it’s really expensive to raise a family here. This means fewer young Californians available to attend state colleges.)
Just like in the movie “Stargate,” it was hoped that “The Gateway” and the CS college would take STEM to a whole new galaxy at U.C. Berkeley: attracting even more CS majors, expanding STEM enrollments, and serving as an extraordinary hood ornament to go along with our “Best Public University in the World” trophy collection. Instead, industries that hire STEM majors decided to outsource entry-level jobs to AI, decreasing the demand for CS majors throughout society (at least temporarily). Also, the glut of CS majors means companies can lower pay and let all the inexperienced, entry-level coders race each other to the bottom of the pay scale. Students could sense this change, so CS enrollments are projected to go down by 59% next year at Berkeley (2026–2027). The State has pledged to increase funding for higher ed but it’s unclear how much of this will offset PhD salaries, which would help boost class sizes in “The Gateway” because STEM could recruit more graduate students. Also, the State of California has not yet given the university this promised money, possibly because it is also facing budget deficits. Money only becomes real when it’s in your pocket.
Me get degree. Me get job. Me get money.
I cannot stress how many college students have this mantra running constantly in the back of their mind. “If I get a degree, I will get a good job. And a good job is one with benefits that pays a livable wage.”
(DISCLAIMER: This blog post does not reflect the sentiments of my employer. According to them all students are embarking upon a voyage of self-discovery and a quest for enlightenment. In this praxis, students only care about the altruistic motive of self-actualization and the “college experience.” Well, not 100% actualization. Probably 90% actualization and 10% vocational training. But self-discovery and actualization are still supposed to supersede vocational training. Even if I don’t have the proportions correct, the university definitely thinks getting a job is secondary to becoming a better person, whatever that is. If it didn’t, things would be different around here.)
Many professors think students want intellectual stimulation, be exposed to new things, and revel in a life of the mind. They think students want to hear our tales of research and publications. A very small number of students are here for purely intellectual reasons. But, I’ve heard my colleagues inflate the importance of what we’re doing because it would hurt our hearts to know that the student body is only here to get a job. This may be an absolutism, but I know we professors are living in a fantasy because grades exist…
I guess I also believe that students do want self-actualization to a certain extent but more often I recognize that my students are a lot like how I was when I was an undergraduate, all they care about is getting their degree so they can get a job. I’ve written about this before but, once I realized anthropology was the degree you had to get to become an archaeologist, I didn’t care about my gen eds. I treated them all like a hurdle that I just had to jump over on the path that ultimately led to my anthropology degree. To advance in the field of archaeology, I went back for a Masters (2002–2005) and a PhD (2014–2017). This meant I took 73 college courses and spent about a decade of my adult life in college. Based on my calculations, 53% of those classes meant absolutely nothing to my future career. I never used a single thing I learned in 39 of 73 classes as a professional archaeologist AND I even built a career using the degrees I earned in college!!! This means my career actually used some of the stuff I learned in my anthropology classes. It’s likely students who don’t go into the industry in which they majored apply even less of their education at work.
For most students, archaeology is a general education class (e.g. one the university forces you to take but it’s not in your major). Students taking anthropology classes as a gen ed compose the bulk of enrollments each year since most anthro departments do not have thousands of enrollments in their major. This means the majority of students you are teaching in a given semester do not care about your class at all. They are only taking it because the university forces them to. You may think you are changing their minds with your research, and you’d be correct for about 10–20 out of 250 students. You might teach something that sticks with a small percentage of students enrolled in your gen ed archaeology class. But most of these folks are exactly like I was when I was an undergrad. As an undergraduate student, I could care less about theater arts, communication, English composition, sociology, and a host of the classes I took to get my Bachelor’s degree. And I remember almost nothing from those classes even though I did well in most of them. I only took them to get a degree that I could use to get a job in archaeology, which is why archaeology students take gen ed courses too.
I see this phenomenon at work every semester. Whole classrooms of students that don’t pay attention. Seventy percent of the room isn’t even looking at you while you speak because they’re on their laptop or phones. A glazed look in their eyes as they sit in absolute boredom, wishing they were doing something, anything, else. And those are the students that are awake. I could bring snacks, show videos, shoot off fireworks in the classroom. None of that would be enough to keep all of my students’ attention in the huge gen ed classes. The only thing that would get them to pay attention is if I told them everyone except for one person is going to get a ‘C’ or a ‘B’ in this class, and they all have to compete in the Hunger Games if they want to be the only student that receives the ‘A.’ It’s very clear that, except for a small number of enrollees, all they care about is the grade they get in my course so they can use their GPA to get scholarships and internships in their major, which what they think is going to get them a job right after graduation.
Students also don’t seem to care that grade inflation makes every ‘A’ more generic and that employers can no longer rely on GPA to decide an applicant’s abilities (https://www.succinctresearch.com/does-grade-inflation-exists-in-archaeology-courses/). Or that employers are looking for candidates with EXPERIENCE and not just experience in their chosen industry. Or that nobody outside of academia will ever care about a student’s GPA, only that they completed their degree. Becoming an Eagle Scout is a better predictor of ability in life than getting an ‘A’ in any college class, or a 4.0 GPA for that matter. Students also do not seem to care that tons of their classmates are speedrunning higher ed by cobbling together a degree built upon bull$hit AI responses submitted for all their assignments; using AI the way generations previously used their brains; letting their laptops guide them through their program. If they cared, the student government would be advocating for controls on AI usage in class because every AI-induced ‘A’ makes the same contribution to a GPA that an organic ‘A’ does. They don’t want controls on AI because all students want is an ‘A’ from every class regardless of how hard they worked, how little they learned, or how the grade was ‘earned.’
Now, anthropology & archaeology majors. They’re a different story.
Will CRM or universities teach the next generation?
In each department, the students in that major are the ones that care most about what is being taught in that department. This means archaeology students are among the ones that care most about what we are teaching in anthropology classes. These are also the students that help me feel fulfillment from my job because they’re interested in the same things I am and are willing to work to go into the same field I am in. However, anthropology students are consistently told their career dreams are stupid. We’re told that we’ll never get a job as an archaeologist because other people can’t believe that it can happen. We are told that we won’t be able to feed ourselves doing archaeology and that an anthropology degree is a complete waste. That anthropology degrees only lead to unemployment.
The problem with these logics is: If you’re trying to use your degree to get a job, most degrees are a waste because they do not teach workplace skills. Anthropology is no different.
Very few majors are preparing students for the workforce. Anthropology is just like the others but at least the skills you learn in anthropology can be applied in a wide range of careers. The reason why others punch down on anthropology is because non-anthro majors do not realize the value of this degree, and anthropology departments are not showing students how their skills can be transferred to the workplace.
For a couple of years now I’ve been aware that archaeology has huge potential to fill niches in what talking heads are calling “New Collar Jobs.” These are professional jobs that require technical skills but not necessarily a college degree. I support this concept but as a supplement to a college degree because certain positions in archaeology have educational requirements (ex. the Secretary of Interior’s Standards on Archaeology). And CRM archaeology is hard on the human body, which means CRMers will need college degrees because that will allow them to qualify for thoughtwork jobs once their bodies start to give out. Also, college degrees will be useful for those that want to pivot out of CRM into another field but want that educational requirement. Degree + experience + certifications is what the job market currently needs:
In those posts, I explain how I think CRM will require a certification system that is woven into the undergraduate college experience. However, I naively failed to think about how CRM archeology could just bypass the higher education system entirely and start training archaeological technicians, a position that does not require a Bachelor’s degree. I know this strategy would not create the kind of analytical mind necessary to think anthropologically about archaeology, which is what we need for the sort of archaeology that both meets regulatory requirements but also does social justice to rectify harms archaeology has done to communities while also uniting sites to the descendants of those that created the sites. The same sort of analytical mind that can help make sober preservation recommendations that are rooted in communities and cultures as climate change threatens an increasing amount of archaeological data. CRM is also struggling with a shortage of field techs because the profit motive and bureaucratic ritualism in the industry prevents many CRMers from connecting their work to the functionality of our larger society, which drives down wages across the board. However; it is also these forces that are behind the nascent movement for CRM to build a certification system that trains field techs.
While I do not believe field tech certification programs can create the kind of archaeologists we need to address 21stcentury needs, I am confident that these programs can create adequate archaeological technicians that will also make excellent college students. Our world is facing a huge number of problems as well as unique opportunities. Climate change is an existential threat to humanity and archaeology. Also, the United States is divesting from science. I don’t think anything good can come from the largest economy in the world ending its commitment to furthering science precisely when we need more scientists so 401k’s can look like they’re going up, house prices can bubble bigger, and corporations can scam us into thinking they’re a net benefit. However, I do think the scamtastic amount of money being pumped into cloud computing can benefit CRM archaeology someday. We work with data but have always only been able to scale at the rate of computing and our proficiency in using it. While AI is pretty much trendslop right now, it has resulted in a surge in computing power and made it easier to create the kind of code that can help CRM companies awash in previous projects, site data, and GIS information to be able to crunch their databases in order to learn more about regional archaeology than we ever thought possible. Eventually, AI could also help each archaeologist produce more analysis than was previously possible which is important given the shortage of CRMers we’re likely to face.
I think CRM archaeology could integrate AI into its business model and research strategies in such a way that we will be able to do more with each project. I also think these are the sort of skills the next generation of archaeologists will need to develop. I think, as is, CRM can teach basic field skills in such a way that it will lead to the data driven archaeologist that will service the industry. However, I do not think these programs will adequately convey the importance of ethical, anthropological archaeology to the communities we serve. That inclusive empathy is best taught in colleges where our altruistic belief in self-actualization can flourish because professors don’t have to worry about the profit motive as much. Therefore, CRM will still need academia to produce well-rounded archaeologists, but it will also benefit greatly from taking the reins of teaching workplace skills.
Training archaeologists outside academia
The future of this “CRMers Training Techs Themselves” gambit is unknown. A worst-case scenario would be a certification system like real estate licensing or six sigma certificates. Something that could rapidly overwhelm the industry with entry level techs, driving down wages and making entry level archaeologists redundant while also failing to teach the sort of skills necessary at the higher levels of the industry. The same sort of thing that’s happening in the trade schools right now.
A best-case scenario would be that CRM builds upon community college trades programs, creating something like culinary schools, welding certifications, and auto mechanic trade schools. I’m seeing a few successful examples of field tech training unfolding at the regional level. For example, the Field Archaeology Certification at Pima Community College (https://www.pima.edu/academics-programs/degrees-certificates/sbs/archaeology/index.html) is a longstanding example of what could be expanded to other regions of the country. Programs like these would be strengthened through direct input from CRM companies and government agencies.
Archaeology associations are also starting certification programs. I’ve known about the Association for Washington Archaeology’s Field Technician Training Program for quite a while now (https://www.archaeologyinwashington.com/techtraining.html). Started during the pandemic, the AWA tech training program is a collaboration between agency and CRM archaeologists to provide a series of courses designed to teach CRM archaeology skills to local university students. A field technician certification is conferred upon completion of a sequence of these classes, but the certificate can be conferred before completing an undergraduate degree. This means graduates can apply for field tech jobs while still working on their Bachelor’s. One of the biggest advantages of this program is the way CRMers and students are able to network with each other. Students get leads with local companies and CRMers receive insights into what is being taught in the classroom. It is hoped that recommendations from CRMers in the program will convince at least some university instructors to incorporate CRM-relevant skills into their curriculum. The AWA program is only a few years old but has really helped local CRM firms and students better prepare field techs for careers in archaeology.
While these programs are landmark, their biggest limitation will always be the reality that students need money AND an education. Participants in the PCC and AWA programs are taking time away from work and family to do each class, which is something not all students can do. I’ve long been an advocate of paying students to learn but this concept has been slow to catch on in CRM. However, there are signs that this idea is gaining traction. A summer internship program established by Bethany Matthews, founder of Antiquity Consulting in Tumwater, Washington. (https://www.antiquityconsulting.com) is an amazing example of a CRM company showing students the money.
Antiquity’s 12-week Field Tech Program pays students to participate in classes taught by CRMers on staff and has 12 modules that cover topics like land navigation, how to dig a shovel probe, CRM law, reporting, lithics and historical artifact identification, health and safety, geology, cultural landscapes, and local plants. Participants are paid hourly for their participation. Per diem, mileage, and room and board are also covered by the company. Antiquity also provides all necessary field equipment. While it looks like participants are getting field experience and training, I’m not sure if they are getting the same level of engagement with other companies or government agencies as they would with the AWA program. Time will tell.
Can CRM adequately train archaeologists without college
Currently, no. But it might be able to someday. And I encourage them to try.
My students constantly remind me that getting a job is why they’re going to college. Money is always a concern for most of them since most anthropology students at my university did not come from wealthy backgrounds. They understand that archaeology is unlikely to make them rich but also understand that they’re going to put this college degree to work the minute they graduate. Thus far I’ve been able to present some fieldwork opportunities and training for a few students that end up working in my lab. Some of my colleagues and I have also been able to do several field schools that paid a stipend and provided room, board, and travel expenses. Finally, I have created classes specifically designed to teach students CRM skills like pedestrian survey, GIS, artifact analysis, and regulatory contexts—an introduction to the basic skills an entry-level field tech need.
Most importantly, I have not yet been able to convince any of my colleagues in CRM to offer paid internships or help me teach workplace skills. Apologies if I’ve influenced you to create internships and I didn’t know. Come find me if you’re a CRMer and are finally willing to put your money where your mouth is. Put me in my place. Make me eat crow. Tell me about the paid internship your company created so I can pat you on the back. I dare you. I’m ready to help you find students for your paid internship. Otherwise, settle for the reality that you are going to have to teach workplace skills once my students get to your workplace, and that’s going to cost you more than the part time internships you didn’t create.
My experience over the past nine years has led me to believe CRM is unwilling to teach students or pay them to learn. They just want to complain about what academia isn’t doing rather than think about what CRM is not doing. Unlike law, medicine, and STEM fields, CRM has not built collaborations with universities and has little influence on college curriculum or FTE hires. This is why I don’t think the industry will be able to execute the certification program they’re talking about.
Also, without increasing wages, CRM is unlikely to attract more CRMers since the money motive is paramount to today’s college students. I cannot stress how important salaries and benefits packages are to today’s students; more important than I recall it being to Gen-Xers like me. Today’s students are doing a cost basis analysis of their degree and anthropology doesn’t do well in these calculations. CRM archaeology depends on altruistic anthropology graduates that have always wanted to become an archaeologist. But the quantity of these students is declining and will continue to decline because of the Enrollment Cliff and low pay in CRM archaeology. Fewer and fewer graduates are going to be willing to put up with how the CRM industry works. Again, increasing wages and offering benefits could attract more CRMers than advertising archaeology as the fulfillment of a dream. So could paid internships that lead to gainful employment.
However, I do believe CRM could conjure up some sort of certification system that could be recognized by companies as the base level of training necessary to produce an adequate field tech. Again, I would strongly urge these techs to get a full college degree since degrees are recognized within the wider economy as a proxy for ability and achievement. I feel like, to optimize success, the certification system would need to be woven into existing community colleges or universities so the certificate contributes to a field tech’s overall education.
The key takeaways from this post are:
- Students make decisions in college with their anticipated career wealth gap in mind. They want their degree to get them a job that makes more money than they’d make managing a Panda Express and has good benefits.
- This is a reality for every single major, as demonstrated by the dramatic drop in computer science majors once they realized a CS degree was no longer a gravy train with biscuit wheels to Silicon Valley.
- Getting thousands of students to take trade school-style field tech certification programs will only flood the market with entry-level archaeologists, driving down wages across CRM. This is good for company owners but bad for archaeologists.
- Additionally, these certification programs will not create the high-quality anthropological archaeologists needed in the 21st century because they will focus too much on basic field methods (without including analytical capabilities), bureaucratic ritualism, and impersonal capitalistic technocracy.
- However, in the short term, I do think CRM needs to take the reins on training the next generation by building a network of regional certification programs. It would be easier if these certifications were embedded in local community colleges or state universities so students could further their education beyond the certificate.
- Field technician certification programs should be treated like the one of many steps towards a Bachelor’s degree, which will serve archaeological technicians long after they’re no longer to work in the field.
I’d like to hear from you. Write a comment below or reach out to me if you have anything to say.
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