Where have all the accounting students gone?

California CPA, June, 2001 by DEANNA McCRARY

Educating high schoolers about what an accountant does and having resources available to students is another countermeasure. "We need to get the message out about how dynamic and exciting public accounting is as a career," says Nancy Weber-Brough, experienced-level recruiter for Ernst & Young.

"We have to start at the high school level or even before. Working with career counselors, going out and doing presentations to students on campus so that they really understand what type of career public accounting would warrant for them. I don't think this effort should rest on one pair of shoulders. I think certainly the firms ought to be doing it. It is a matter of education and that should be coming from various directions--schools, firms, CPA societies."

AND IF THINGS DON'T CHANGE ...

"Maybe accounting professors will go away," says Storrer. "But the industry is not going to go away." He also speculates that recruitment will broaden. "If we don't do the training [the Big Five] have got to, because they're not going away."

"I think society's expectations increase over time so more and more will be demanded of [accountants]," says Holder. "The individuals that they interact with at the top levels of American business are going to be extraordinarily bright, capable people, generally armed with MBA-type skills, training, education and experience. [Our students] are likely to be ill-equipped to deal effectively with those kinds of people. I think there is every chance that they will be relegated further and further down the value chain of information to be becoming mere preparers of information rather than interpreters and decision makers, using information. If we don't take the appropriate steps to maintain our ability to be state of the art in the eyes of the CEOs and CFOs that we serve we will continue to diminish in stature, remuneration and desirability as a profession."

Deanna McCrary is CalCPA's editor and writer.

The Salaries
Starting Salaries for Bachelor's Degrees
Accountin             $38,739
Business Admin.       $36,314
Econmics/Finance      $40,297
Investment Banking    $49,741
MIS                   $44,879
Computer Engineering  $53,443
Hardware Design       $58,129
Computer Science      $51,581
Info.Sciences         $44,251

Consider This

California Board of Acountancy Licensee Statistics

IN THE PAST FOUR fiscal years, the number of licenses issued has averaged just over 2,000 per year. Down from more than 2,500 in 1992.

In the past two fiscal years, there has been an approximate 9 percent increase in candidates sitting for the Uniform CPA Examination.