Do colleges prepare future CPAs? Three key insights

Whether a professor has taught thousands of students throughout their career or is new to the classroom, they aim to give students a strong foundation in the relevant competencies and skills for their major and future career. As professions evolve, the curriculum to develop young minds must keep pace. The CPA profession and accounting programs are no different.

I have been in accounting academia for many years, most recently as an associate professor of accounting at Sam Houston State University. To keep my classes relevant, I have consistently modified the curriculum in response to changes in the professional environment. As an academic, it is vital to prepare students to successfully enter the marketplace.

AICPA finds public accounting hiring model shifts

The AICPA recently released the 2019 Trends in the Supply of Accounting Graduates and Demand for Public Accounting Recruits report. The report shows that the accounting profession requires new skill sets because of the rapid advancement of emerging technology, especially in data science and analytics. This is changing who we do business with and how we do it. As a result, non-accounting graduates make up about 31% of all new graduate hires in public accounting — an increase of 11 percentage points from 2016 to 2018.

Accounting graduates and newly licensed CPAs must have the skills and expertise to support the growing technology needs. One of the ways the AICPA seeks to address this trend is through the CPA Evolution project, in partnership with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy. This project strives to ensure that CPAs can support an accounting profession that plays a critical role in protecting the public interest.

School’s in: Inspiring the next generation of CPAs

With school back in session, hundreds of thousands of students are embarking on their college careers. It’s a date with destiny that will culminate in the answer to the question they’ve been asked a hundred times: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Where kids and young adults get their ideas for the occupation that will define their adult lives varies widely. Some follow the footsteps of parents or other family members. Some find themselves attracted to a profession through something they learned early in their education. Still others admire a public figure, CEO or fictional character who inspires their choices (if you’re having trouble believing that last one, check out this story).

But if you want to help set your student (or someone else’s) on a career path they’ll find rewarding, interesting and lucrative, accounting is a natural suggestion. And encouraging them to pursue the CPA will help keep them in demand well into the future.

AICPA Finds Accounting Enrollments Remain High

The AICPA recently released the 2017 Trends in the Supply of Accounting Graduates and Demand for Public Accounting Recruits report (Trends report). The report found that the total number of accounting undergraduate and graduate enrollments remains at the record levels seen in the 2014-2015 academic year, totaling more than 250,000 enrollments.  This was driven primarily by an all-time high in undergraduate enrollments. On the demand side, hiring of new accounting graduates has slowed compared to previous years.

This year we saw a shift in the mix of bachelor’s versus master’s enrollments. Projected master’s enrollments have returned to pre-2014 levels, while undergraduate enrollments remained high. The last several Trends reports found a sharp rise in the number of master’s enrollments and graduates. The higher numbers previously reported may be attributed to a surge in both traditional students and those changing careers earning their master’s in accounting. The CPA profession is known to have significantly lower rates of unemployment than the broader economy, particularly during economic downturns.  In my experience as an educator, economic turmoil is a strong motivator for people to seek out the stability that a career in accounting provides.

Pumping Up the CPA Pipeline with AICPA Legacy Scholars Program

College can be very expensive – I’ve got reams of cancelled checks to my student loan provider to prove it - but it’s also the best way to increase one’s chances of economic mobility. A college degree is essential if you’re planning to earn a CPA license.

The AICPA has long been committed to ensuring that there is a strong supply of talented CPAs in the pipeline to help the profession continue to meet the needs of U.S. capital markets. One of the ways the AICPA does this is through our AICPA Legacy Scholars Program.

The program, established in 2011, awards recipients with a one-year scholarship. It uses on-campus service work to help them develop the soft skills, including leadership and communications, needed to thrive in the accounting profession. Scholarship recipients plan, promote and execute specific on-campus events each semester that promote the value of the profession to others. To date, more than 300 students have participated in the AICPA Legacy Scholars program

The AICPA Legacy Scholars program comprises four distinct awards:

AICPA/Accountemps Student Scholarship

AICPA Foundation Two-Year Transfer Scholarship

AICPA John L. Carey Scholarship

AICPA Scholarship for Minority Accounting Students

Attracting, Engaging and Inspiring Future CPAs

Our commitment to the CPA pipeline is stronger than ever. Efforts of the AICPA, firms, state societies and many others have led to the number of accounting college graduates growing in the past 12 years from 45,000 in 2001-2002 to 82,000 in 2013-2014. Additionally, while about 24,000 candidates successfully completed the CPA Exam in 2008, we have averaged slightly over 26,000 since then.

The profession’s focus on the CPA pipeline has long been a priority. That will continue, with new approaches to attracting, engaging and inspiring the future generation of CPAs. We are constantly creating, implementing and evaluating programs to build the pipeline.

Over the past year, we have launched or refined many AICPA programs to align better with our goals. Our initiatives are focused on three themes:

1) Increasing the recognition of the CPA on campus;

2) Expanding reach beyond 4-year colleges; and

3) Building relationships with academics.

AICPA Trends Report finds Accounting Enrollments Reach an All-Time High

Last week, the AICPA released the 2015 Trends in the Supply of Accounting Graduates and Demand for Public Accounting Recruits report. The report found that enrollments in undergraduate and graduate accounting programs increased in the 2013-14 academic year, and combined to cross the 250,000 threshold for the first time. On the recruiting side, accounting firms hired a record number of accounting graduates in 2014, representing a seven percent increase from the previous survey.

In addition, there was optimism from both universities and firms that the growth of the accounting profession will continue. Ninety-seven percent of bachelor’s programs and seventy percent of master’s programs stated that they expect their enrollment to be the same or higher within two years of responding to the survey.

Building upon the record levels of hiring, 91 percent of firms reported that they expect to hire at the same or an increased level in the following year. Larger firms are particularly optimistic about future hiring levels. All firms employing more than 200 CPAs reported their hiring will either increase or stay the same in the next year. This indicates that job prospects for current enrollees in accounting programs, as well as recent graduates, remains extremely bright.

Fueling the Accounting Profession Pipeline: What Will it Take?

I recently attended the AICPA’s Spring Council session in Washington, DC where I had the pleasure of going to a fascinating session on fueling the accounting profession pipeline. I’ve had some time to reflect on what I think the research means in terms of active steps that CPAs and state CPA societies should take to ensure there is a bright, talented and diverse applicant pool available for new and experienced hires.

Below are three main areas that research indicates impact an individual’s decision to commit to a career in accounting, as well as suggestions for how we can leverage these areas to help foster the greatest number of young professionals entering the accounting field.