they share their ideas for changes.
by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research
are accountants a threatened species?
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extinction’s still a ways off, but the numbers of cpas are in serious decline. between 2010 and 2021, the number of people taking and passing the cpa licensing exam fell 36 percent, from more than 50,000 to about 32,000.
meanwhile, in 2020, 75 percent of all cpas reached retirement age.
crunch those numbers, and what do you get? you get in big trouble. trouble for the profession, trouble for businesses, trouble for the economy.
why?
why the declining interest in an accounting career?
the reasons are legion, and some of them go back farther than one might imagine, according to a study, “increasing diversity in the accounting profession pipeline: challenges and opportunities,” commissioned by the center for audit quality.
the researchers asked 1,800 current and recent college grads majoring in some area of business questions about why they chose or did not choose a career in accounting, what encouraged or discouraged them, and what barriers they had to overcome.
some of the answers were surprising, others predictable, all educational.
guess where the pipeline starts
the most surprising finding: among all the business majors, those majoring in accounting were most likely to have picked that major before they started college. in fact, some were interested before they started high school.
- 66 percent of accounting majors entered college intending to major in accounting and never changed their minds.
- 24 percent of them intended to major in something else but changed to accounting.
- only 9 percent of eventual accounting majors did not know their major when they started college.
the lesson from these findings: that maybe the accounting education pipeline starts not at college but in junior high school.
the clog in the pipeline
college may be the place where potential accountants branch off into another pipeline.
compared with other business-related majors, accounting showed lower favorability ratings. four in 10 non-accounting business majors said that at some point, they considered going into accounting but decided not to. the numbers were even higher for black and hispanic students, 50 and 48 percent, respectively.
but then, only one in three of those non-accounting majors who considered accounting found the course content interesting.
- 38 percent who had considered accounting took the intro courses only because they were required.
- only 36 percent of them found intro courses interesting.
- only 40 percent said the courses got them excited about accounting.
- among non-accounting majors, 32 percent said lack of interest was their main reason for avoiding that major, and 70 percent said it was at least part of the reason.
the lesson from the findings? intro courses need to be as interesting or engaging as the actual profession.
other barriers
while lack of interest was the most common reason for going into other majors, other reasons were almost as common.
- 29 percent said they expected higher starting salaries in other fields of business.
- 28 percent didn’t want to pursue the 150 total credit hours for certification – 30 more than required for graduation – and 25 percent said they couldn’t afford it.
- 28 percent said their math aptitudes were inadequate for accounting, and 24 percent said they lacked the skillset.
- the 150-hour requirement was much more burdensome for blacks and hispanics. while only 21 percent of whites said they couldn’t afford it or needed to start earning soon, 39 percent of blacks and 38 percent of hispanics hit that financial barrier.
- among white accounting majors, 85 percent planned to pursue certification, but the rates were 68 percent for blacks and 72 percent for hispanics.
the lesson? starting salaries for accountants need to be higher, and accounting majors need more support to pursue cpa certification.
student advice
who knows what students want more than students? here are the top kinds of support that business majors said would be extremely or very helpful in leading them into accounting.
- exposure to basic principles in high school (75 percent)
- an overview of different career paths for accountants, besides public accounting (68 percent)
- breaking up intro courses into several courses to allow mastery of key concepts (65 percent)
- an “accounting lab” that complements coursework (67 percent)
the lesson? ask the ones taking the lessons.