Archaeology and “New Collar Jobs,” Part II

Cultural resource management (CRM) archaeology has been constructed to value college degrees over professional certifications. However, there may become a time in the near future when the New Collar certifications compete with college degrees. In this case, folks with degrees AND New Collar certifications will rule the day.

My primary support for New Collar Certifications for archaeologists stems from my newfound understanding of the diminishing Wealth Premium of many college degrees. It’s true that you are more likely to earn more money throughout your life if you have a college degree, but those higher salaries may not translate into positive net worth, especially if you take on too much student loan debt.

This is the continuation of the previous post, which you can read here.

The Wealth Premium of a College Degree

As an archaeology professor and parent, I’ve become increasingly aware of the reality that being a college student today is not what it was when I was an undergraduate. I come from a family that values a college education. It was a given that, since my siblings and I were all smart, we were going to go to college. College degrees played a significant role in bringing my family from the alfalfa farms of Idaho and cotton fields of North Carolina to a middle-class life.

I am increasingly aware that money invested in college does not always lead to a financially beneficial life. It is no longer a guarantee that college will lead to a lucrative career. Additionally, not all degrees are created equal. Recent research shows that some degrees do not lead to a well-paying job. When the cost of tuition and fees are added to the equation, there is a universe of degrees earned from certain institutions that will leave its graduates worse off financially than they would have been without a college degree.

In 2019, three scholars with the St. Louis Reserve Bank published the paper “Is College Still Worth It? The New Calculus of Falling Returns.” (https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/review/2019/10/15/is-college-still-worth-it-the-new-calculus-of-falling-returns.pdf) The authors focused on calculations that attempt to go beyond the college income premium (e.g. the extra income a college graduate gets over individuals who have not completed college) to calculate the college wealth premium (e.g. the extra net worth a college graduate can expect over someone without a college degree).

We frequently hear that a college degree is a pathway to higher salaries, and it still is. However, the costs of obtaining that degree may entail taking on such a large amount of student loans that the net worth of that degree is greatly reduced. The time to get the degree also limits the time a student could have otherwise been gainfully employed, earning money, buying assets, and making investments. College is ever increasing in its out-of-pocket cost, which is causing even more students and their families to take out loans to cover tuition, fees, and the cost of living for college students. This means many college graduates finish school with debt that can never be dissolved through bankruptcy and requires monthly payments that may reduce their net worth for decades after graduation.

(NOTE: The authors are also completely clear that there are a host of other elements that affect one’s net worth besides your student loan payments. They acknowledge their calculations do not cover every person’s financial situation because they were made using aggregate data. Everyone’s financial situation is different, which makes it hard to make blanket statements about individual net worth. I suggest you all read this report yourself, especially if you like statistics).

I have long been recommending that students pay attention the price of their degrees but haven’t really been asking students to account for the college wealth premium of an anthropology degree. My previous recommendations centered on getting your degree as affordably as possible but now I must compel students to also calculate how their net worth will be affected by attaining a degree.

Should you go to graduate school for archaeology?

Higher education tips for cultural resource management archaeologists

Now I think folks really need to consider the college wealth premium, especially if you are contemplating going back to graduate school for any major because the data suggests the cost of living, tuition/fees, and inflation is rapidly consuming any wealth premium you can expect from getting a grad degree.

Perhaps this is where the argument for New Collar Jobs is most powerful. Why go back to college for a grad degree when a series of professional certifications and trainings can teach you the skills you need for higher level work at the fraction of a price? Even better if you can get this training through your employer while you keep working. Why take on more debt if it’s not clearly going to add to your net worth?

However, I do not believe trainings will not replace the income premium that comes with a college degree for two main reasons: 1) the CRM workplace has evolved to respect/desire applicants with college degrees and 2) companies are willing to pay people with college degrees more money than those without. Parents and students know this, which is a major reason why anthropology enrollments are falling across the country and CRM companies have staffing shortages.

CRM doesn’t pay enough. Students know this and are afraid to go after a career in CRM, especially if they have to borrow money.

There is more to increasing net worth than increasing one’s salary. I am not a financial advisor, but I know that since most of us are not entrepreneurs or investors, maintaining/lowering expenses while also increasing our salary is more likely to provide the surplus resources necessary to start acquiring assets. Acquiring assets IS a major way of increasing net worth. New Collar Jobs could be the pathway towards increasing net worth if the certifications and trainings that come from these jobs increase incomes without forcing workers to take on more debt. That is as long as “Lifestyle Creep” doesn’t eat those income gains and you don’t have to eat your savings all the time because you get laid off from your CRM job periodically…

Will an Archaeology “New Collar Jobs” System alone benefit BIPOC archaeologists?

No. I do not think they will.

In fact, I think New Collar Jobs may hurt the career prospects of BIPOC archaeologists because of the preferences in CRM archaeology for archaeologists with college degrees.

It is true that anthropology is slowly diversifying. Archaeology is increasing its proportion of working-class practitioners and other fields of anthropology are becoming more ethnically and racially diverse, but archaeology remains overwhelmingly white. I see BIPOC archaeologists making gains through organizations like the Society of Black Archaeologists and the Indigenous Archaeology Collective, as well as accomplices in the Black Trowel Collective. This comes in the form of things like the African-American Burial Grounds Preservation Act and new revisions to CalNAGPRA. I also see white archaeologists pushing against these changes. Elder white archaeologists are stalling/resisting repatriation claims and are constantly questioning the need of anti-racism trainings even while they nominate BIPOC archaeologists to leadership positions and applaud diversity efforts. Is this a contradiction? No. It’s how white archaeologists have always carried themselves: Show interest in the novel strangeness of BIPOC people while shunning their existence in white spaces. Optical diversity does nothing to change white hegemony and Elite Capture until BIPOC people build organizations that can challenge those organizations.

In this world, BIPOC archaeologists will need to work hard to build their credentials as well as their networks if they want to chisel a space for themselves in American archaeology. This is being done right now but we also need to make sure that up-and-coming Black archaeologists do not limit the growth of their net worth simply because they want to become archaeologists. This means BIPOC archaeologists will need college degrees, preferably a graduate degree, and they can’t take on too much debt in the process. College degrees and New Collar certifications will be necessary for BIPOC archaeologists so they can be seen as true professionals qualified to lead this country’s archaeology in the next century. Archaeologists of color will still have to work twice as hard to be considered half as good…

Will New Collar Archaeology Jobs alone benefit working-class archaeologists?

Nope. I think working-class archaeologists will also need both a degree and New Collar Job Certificates for many of the same reasons BIPOC archaeologists will.

The reality is none of us can afford for young archaeologists to hinder their net worth just so they can become archaeologists. This is even more important since so many archaeologists are from working class backgrounds. Working-class and BIPOC people are the last ones who should be taking on loads of student loan debt to attain any degree because all that debt could hinder their options after graduation and they are less likely to have support from family during the time when they have to repay these loans. The success of the one poor person who “made it” could mean bringing a whole family out of poverty and bring the next generation into the middle-class.

Like BIPOC archaeologists, working class archaeologists need to think about the wealth premium more than aspiring archaeologists with more means. New Collar certifications could also hurt their career prospects in the long run for many of the reasons they could hurt BIPOC archaeologists.

New Collar Archaeology Certifications could be one possible solution to the shortage of archaeologists.

We find ourselves in a situation where CRM companies cannot find the people they need to do all the upcoming work. Universities are not going to come to the rescue. The situation we find ourselves in has been a long time coming but now it’s reaching a crisis point because:

1. The Baby Boomers are retiring (FINALLY!) Many of their positions won’t be filled but thousands will.
2. Generation X is smaller than the Boomers. The few of us still in archaeology are filling these openings, which leaves our positions open.
3. The cost of college has forced today’s students to think about the wealth premium of their college degree. They’ve calculated that CRM isn’t going to pay off because CRM companies have been in a 50-year-long race to the bottom of the wage scales while universities have been on a 50-year-long campaign to see just how much people are willing to pay for a degree. Wage increases in CRM are lowering the gap between salaries and college debt but I’m not sure it’s going to eliminate it entirely.
4. The Enrollment Cliff is upon us. The cohort of college-aged Americans is decreasing, which means enrollments are decreasing at regional and smaller schools. Flagships are okay for the time being.
5. There are fewer anthropology programs. Every Anthro program at a smaller school that goes down means fewer chances to train a future archaeologist.
6. Archaeology job requirements remain stringent. Employers are asking for a college degree, field school, and experience for entry-level openings, even though there are fewer applicants that meet those criteria. The Secretary of Interior’s Standards for Archaeologists still call for a graduate degree.
7. Finally, private equity is getting into CRM. Chronicle Heritage was possibly the first CRM company big enough to get acquired by private capital. Now it’s owned by The Riverside Group, which is a private equity/venture capital outfit. We all know what happens when private equity gets involved in an industry.

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All of these factors are ushering in a new era in CRM archaeology. There are benefits and drawbacks to every period of great transition. I see a way for New Collar Job certifications to help ease us into this new era in a way college degrees alone cannot.

New Collar Certifications could change the way we teach archaeology.

Even though I’ve been hard on them for these two blog posts, I think New Collar Certifications for professional archaeologists could be one of many answers we need in CRM. I envision these certifications built as collaborations between universities, professional organizations, government agencies and CRM companies. Agencies have the most stringent requirements for job titles, so they set the bar of skills and knowledge that we’re trying to reach. Universities have all the students and the degrees. Professional organizations span academia and CRM. Companies hire most of the people, spend the most time and money training them; therefore, they have the most to gain from this system.

The problem is getting people to agree upon what should be learned and how it should be taught. Fortunately, we don’t have to invent the wheel because we already have several examples of how this can be done.

1. Programs Archaeologists can Emulate to Create New Collar Jobs Certifications.

Like I said, we don’t have to make this up from scratch. Here are some things other organizations are already doing that could be adapted for CRM archaeology.

Grow with Google: (https://grow.google/) Google has developed a series of technical certifications for a range of positions in the tech industry. It’s a partnership between universities, companies, and delivered by Coursera.

Coursera: (https://www.coursera.org/) Making these CRM certificates available online is probably the best way to distribute them to aspiring students. Coursera already partners with hundreds of universities to deliver courses to students around the world, including those developed by industry.

PADI scuba diving certifications: (https://www.padi.com/) Many feel like an online course isn’t going to be enough to teach archaeology skills. We could use the same process scuba diving instructors use to certify people for open-water scuba diving, science diving, and diving for other careers. Scuba certifications are recognized internationally. The coursework takes place through online quizzes mixed with classroom lectures. Students both demonstrate their skills through these tests and through other field challenges where they demonstrate proficiency to qualified instructors.

Boy Scouts of America Merit Badge System: (https://www.scouting.org/skills/merit-badges/) Finally, we could have a merit badge system like the Boy Scouts use to help youth rise through the ranks. There is a range of different badges, including an Archaeology Merit Badge, that Scouts earn by demonstrating proficiency in particular skills. Their proficiency is evaluated by an adult who has a rubric that has been devised for all scouts across the country. The merit badges are important parts of a Scout’s growth in the organization, which also has a system of rankings that culminate at Eagle Scout.

II. Get by-in from the national organizations.

Whatever system we develop, it will require the large archaeology organizations to endorse and spread information about it. This can come in a range of formats, but it is the best chance to get archaeologists to take these certifications seriously and spread information about them. Some of this is already starting.

The American Cultural Resources Association (ACRA) endorses university programs that teach cultural resource management (https://acra-crm.org/recognized-universities/). The Register of Professional Archaeologists (RPA) also has a field school certification program (https://rpanet.org/field-school-certification). However, there is no way to evaluate the curriculum taught at these programs so there is no guarantee they actually teach what folks need to do CRM. A professional archaeology certification program would have to go beyond what any university does to encompass things CRM archaeologists think are important. Again, the government agencies are showing us the way in their job requirements which are hard to change and difficult to get around. We should be trying to get folks to meet the most stringent requirements rather than lowering them.

III. Supplement the existing undergraduate curriculum.

All of the aforementioned recommendations are going to cost time and money. Even though its largely run by volunteers, the Boy Scouts costs several hundred dollars in membership each year plus outdoor gear and dozens of hours of volunteering. Google courses on Coursera are $49/month until you complete the certificates, which could take a couple months. Don’t get me started with how much scuba certification costs.

The best of all worlds would be for students to earn their certifications in the classroom. Professors could make the outcomes for their courses meet the requirements for the CRM certifications. For example, a class on Mayan archaeology could assure students meet the requirements for a GIS mapping certificate. Or historical artifact analysis could meet the requirements for historical ceramics and glass certificates. Classroom assignments should be designed so students could pay the $49 and get the RPA or ACRA to recognize that they’ve met the requirements for some of these certifications so that, when they graduate, they complete school with their degree as well as demonstrated proficiency in several areas of archaeology.

Is this already happening?

I don’t know about other professors but I’ve already built all my classes around helping students meet the needs of agency and cultural resource management. Those students who want careers in archaeology have told me that my classes made it easier for them to get jobs because I teach:

• How the National Historic Preservation Act and National Environmental Quality Act play a role in American archaeology.
• How the California Environmental Quality Act differs from the Federal regulations.
• How historic preservation plays a role in what we know, how we know it, and how it differentially benefits certain communities at the expense of others.
• Technical writing basics.
• Resume-writing.
• Historical artifact identification and analysis in alignment with classifications and definitions of the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (DAACS). I also encourage students to hone their skills at DAACS through their summer workshops.
• Grant writing and proposaling.
• Archaeological budgeting.
• Basic land navigation and mapmaking using a compass.
• GIS.
• Most importantly– That theory and 20-page term papers don’t put food in your stomach, a roof over your head, or diapers on your kid. But cultural resource management does.

I’m not saying my methods are the only way to get things done. I learned greatly from my mentors: Mark Warner, Maria Nieves Zedeño, Christian J. Miss, Loralea Hudson, and others. I carry their lessons with me wherever I go, and they didn’t use anything like the system I’m proposing in this blog post.

Things have changed since I got into archaeology though. We are facing tough times if we cannot train enough cultural resource management archaeologists. We cannot rely on the system I used to get here because it will only get us more of what we already have: a shortage of archaeologists and an antiquated system out of sync with what young people want from their degree. We will have to think of a new way that keeps the best of what we’ve built while paving a pathway for a new world we cannot yet imagine. I think New Collar Jobs are here to stay. Why not figure out a way to integrate them into training the next generation of archaeologists?

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