College Accounting Rolls Rebound

The survey was conducted in 2004, regarding graduates of the year 2002-2003. It found a small army of 37,000 new professionals receiving Bachelor's degrees in accounting, and another 13,000 receiving Master's degrees. That's six percent more undergraduates than in the year before, and an awesome 30 percent increase in Master's degrees.

As in the past several years, women grads outnumbered men, 57 percent to 43 percent at the Bachelor's level, and 52 percent to 48 percent at the Master's level. At the Ph.D. level, however, men still led, 56 percent to 42 percent.

It's encouraging to see more minorities coming into the profession ? 22 percent of those graduating with a Bachelor's in accounting, 18 percent of those rising to the Master's level, and 46 percent of those taking Ph.D.s.

Few of these Ph.D.s are destined to join CPA firms, of course. Most will end up in academia, where they can encourage additional minorities to come into the profession.

To all of this, we say hooray. It's about time. Accounting is a field of professionals who generally aren't concerned with gender or ethnicity. Capability is the operative quality. We have a huge job to do, and we can use all the help we can get.

Public accounting firms reaped the greater part of this new crop of undergrads, absorbing a quarter of their ranks. Business and industry took up another fifth. Among those with new Master's degrees, 59 percent went into public accounting.

Meanwhile, the turnover rate at CPA firms has been holding steady at 10 percent per year. And each turnover situation is a job opening.

Minority hiring was roughly proportionate to the general population, with 18 percent of new graduates hired by CPA firms being minorities. The percentages within that group, however, were not proportionate. Nine percent of all new graduate hires were Asian or Pacific Islanders. Five percent were African-American, and four percent were Hispanic or Latino.

The survey also asked CPA firms to predict future hiring of new grads. Comparing future years to 2003, results depended on the size of the firm, but all foresee an increase. The smaller firms expected to see an increase of about 9 percent to 15 percent in 2006, and 8 percent to 19 percent in 2008. The larger firms (50 members and up) foresaw even bigger increases in hiring: 12 percent to 20 percent in 2006, 12 percent to 17 percent in 2008.

Those numbers are good news for accounting graduates, but colleges and universities have bad news for CPA firms. Only half (51%) of schools foresaw an increase in enrollment in accounting programs over the next two years.

Big accounting firms will need to increase hiring by almost 20 percent per year. Schools will be increasing accounting degrees by about 6 percent per year.

You don't need a degree in accounting to see the problem in those numbers. And you don't need a crystal ball to see that without more help, accountancy may soon become a 24/7 job.