Future Funeral Directors: Education, License Portability, Hiring Practices all in flux

April 10, 2026/Business, Regulations/

I spent six years as a board member of the University of Minnesota, which comprises the 8th largest campus by enrollment in the United States counting over 55,000 students. During that tenure I spent two of those years as Chair of the Finance Committee and two years as Chair of the Mission Committee which deals with the academic side of the university.

If anything, those six years taught me that change and movement in the educational system of our country moves at a slow pace. However, I also learned that the university community, whether it be athletics, finances, or educational situations, does move when the market dictates it must.

The “market dictating it must” is how I would define what I see happening in the future of new funeral directors. Recently, I have seen articles and discussion centered around change in funeral service education, license portability, and hiring practices for funeral directors/morticians.

I think a lot of the discussion has been prompted by market conditions. Funeral homes, crematories, and cemeteries have all seen their business practices change in the past few years because of changing consumer preferences and that is now reaching the point that the future workforce of Death Care needs to be addressed.

For instance, this comment was recently part of an article about a potential Minnesota change to license portability that is currently sitting in the Minnesota Legislature’s contemplated bills for this year, “A report by St. Paul-based Real Time Talent. . found Minnesota currently has only 51 licensed funeral directors for every 100 open positions, one in three are 65 or older and 50% of the workforce is projected to be gone by 2029”. When you see that statement it indicates that market conditions are dictating potential changes to issues around funeral home licensure. You can see the article on this potential Minnesota mortician license portability here.

And here’s another article, this one from the Distict of Columbia Policy Center arguing that licensure, in this case mortuary licensure, only serves to raise costs to consumers and the cost for potential funeral directors to be educated. This group seems to see no value to licensure if it raises costs to consumers.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

As we move forward in funeral service education there are bound to be other changes. While the profession must have competency in moving forward there is a movement from potential students of mortuary science that they want less time in school, less cost of education, and the ability to complete their educations online if they so choose. That said, there is also a demand for in-person, bachelor degree programs that offer the “experience” of being within a campus learning environment.

The secret, I think, is the ability to offer both worlds to those students of differing needs and wants.

My guess is that “the market” will figure that situation out and as we move forward we will see things happening in the funeral service education market in the not so distant future. It’s interesting, however, on some of the trade-offs of funeral service education. While Minnesota, the topic of the potential portability of licensure law change, is one of only four states that requires a bachelor’s degree to practice mortuary science, according to this article that appeared on the Pierce Colleges website, it also ranked #1 in approximate funeral director wages at $88,000.

That might lead one to speculate if there is a correlation between “educational experience” and future earning capacity. Questions such as “Will that degree eventually lead to advancement opportunities as the Death Care world becomes more corporate?”

Related Article — Here’s a recent article and video from Connecting Directors titled, “Is Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science going Bankrupt?”

Related Article — Here’s an article titled “The Growing demand for funeral professionals in the AI-driven world”. From the Mid-America College of Funeral Service website.

No more “Hiring by Resume” — Getting the “right hire” is no longer as simple as looking through resumes. And, getting the “right hire” is extremely important to businesses, too.

One of the current movements in the human resources profession is that of “Job Trials”. That is the idea that potential hires come to work, pre-determined for only a week or so, to see if the position is right for them. . . and the candidate is right for the potential employer. Here’s how one article explained a “Job Trial”:

“A job trial is a brief period of time during which a candidate completes an assignment for a prospective company—either independently or alongside their potential team. The goal is to assess the candidate’s compatibility for the job, skills requirements, and company culture.”

While I never did it formally, I look back and realized that I utilized “job trials” to see if people would be comfortable with working in the Death Care profession. At least three times in my working and owning a funeral home career I had people tell me that they were interested in changing occupations or college majors to become a funeral director. They were looking for advice and in each case I offered to hire them as funeral assistants or give them summer work during college, to see if it was work they really wanted to do. I’m happy to report that all three took me up on the offer and all three followed through and became licensed funeral directors.

Related Article — “Job Trials: Definitions, benefits, and tips for success.” Tellent Recruitee Blog

Just for your personal knowledge — During my research for this article I called upon Gemini Artificial Intelligence to let me know where the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus ranked for in-person student enrollment numbers on a single campus in the United States. As you have read, it ranked 8th. Here’s the top 3 that were revealed to me.