Last night I was talking to some lecturers from University College London about the impact of compulsory tuition fees that were recently introduced by the university. The results are interesting. The archaeology department, where I studied at the between 2000 - 2003, used to attract about 100 undergraduate students per year, most of whom came from the EU and paid just over £1000 in tuition fees. Since introducing a higher, but still mostly flat rate, fee of £3000, the numbers of undergraduate archaeology students has fallen to around 70 per year. This is the best thing that has happened to archaeology since the drop forged trowel.
Archaeology is the lowest paid profession in the UK, and probably in the world. There are numerous factors that contribute to its lowly status; the separation of academic (well paid, clean, offices, think a lot) and field (badly paid, dirty, huts, do a lot) archaeologists; the status of commercial archaeology as a nice-to-have-but-not-really-necessary requirement of development and an over supply of skilled labour.
Because universities have in the past charged nothing or very little in the way of fees, prospective students are not encouraged to consider the financial implications of their decisions. A whole load of people study archaeology, presumably because it is interesting, and then become accountants. The effect of this as a massive oversupply of labour at the graduate level, that archaeology companies in the UK ruthlessly exploit. By ruthless I mean that they sack their staff before Christmas to avoid paying holiday pay (Oxford Archaeology to name just one).
I would predict that as universities charge more and more for degree courses, and eventually charge different amounts for different courses (effectively liberalising the market) fewer and fewer people will chose to study archaeology. This will increase the value of those who are already qualified and those who are studying to become qualified. Wages will rise accordingly, starting at the bottom of the stack and working its way up. The market value of archaeologists will reflect their skill level, enthusiasm and dedication. The workforce will be happier and more productive, as they will feel valued, so the real costs to employers will drop (they’ll get more work done for their money). The quality of archaeology carried out in the UK, which is often very high, but sometimes abysmal (email me and I’ll give you a long list), will also rise, as students will be better trained and because companies like Oxford Archaeology will not be able to get away with firing their staff over Christmas, or employing people of 6 week contracts and will have to provide professional training to all of their staff (rather than the boss’s friends). There will also be a lower drop out rate from the profession. A lot of dedicated, talented people with years of experience, drop out of archaeology because they are so frustrated with being paid a pittance and treated like morons. They know they are worth more than £7.50 an hour, so they join other professions. Those who stay behind are destined to a life of very enjoyable, challenging, varied, skilled work alongside some of the most interesting and intelligent people you could hope to meet - and then a state pension and arthritis, or if they are unlucky they might develop diabetes and be fired when they are too blind to work (yep, good old OA again. All this because of the insanity of the current higher education system.
Its broke, it needs fixing, its in the process of being fixed. Lets see how things pan out.
