The accounting graduate pipeline: Where do things stand?

The desire to hire new accounting graduates remains strong among public accounting firms, and signs point to a possible turning of the tide when it comes to supply meeting demand, according to data from the AICPA’s biennial Trends report.

Among public accounting firms that participated in 2025 Trends: A Report on Accounting Education, the CPA Exam, and Public Accounting Firms’ Hiring of Recent Graduates, 75% said they expected to hire at least as many new graduates in 2025 as they did in 2024. Participating firms reported that 75% of their 11,985 new graduate hires in 2024 were accounting majors.

Schools awarded 55,152 accounting bachelor’s and master’s degrees during the 2023–2024 academic year, down 6.6% from the prior year. The rate of decline eased from a 9.6% drop from 2021–2022 to 2022–2023, and enrollment in accounting programs is on the rise.

During the 2025 spring semester, enrollment in two- and four-year accounting programs in the United States stood at 266,506 students, a 12.4% increase from the prior year and the highest total since 2020.

“While we continue to see a contraction in the supply of accounting graduates, it’s encouraging the rate of decline has slowed year over year,” Jan Taylor, CPA, CGMA, Ph.D., the AICPA’s academic-in-residence, said in a news release. “That suggests some of the initiatives the profession has pursued in recent years are starting to have an effect. We’ve seen an increase in entry-level pay, more objective narratives about opportunities in the profession, and a renewed commitment to reduce some of the costs and administrative hurdles to becoming a CPA.”

The news release provided some perspective to keep in mind when considering the numbers:

• The 6.6% drop in accounting degrees from the 2022–2023 school year to the 2023–2024 school year is primarily attributable to a decline in master’s degrees awarded, a trend that “aligns in part with a steeper drop in the funnel of bachelor’s degree earners in previous years,” according to the release. Master’s degrees in either accounting or taxation dropped approximately 15% year over year, compared with a 3.3% drop in bachelor’s degrees in accounting. The breakout of bachelor’s versus master’s data is derived from provisional data released last month by the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, an arm of the U.S. Department of Education.
• As in the 2023 Trends report, the number of new graduate hires in 2024 is limited to those reported by the firms that participated in the report. A comparatively low response rate by firms in the last two reports has impeded calculation of a statistically reliable estimate of new graduate hires by all public accounting firms — a feature of the Trends report from 1971–2020.

The number of new candidates who took the CPA Exam fell from 2023 to 2024, as was expected with major changes to the exam going into effect, according to the news release. Historically, the year before a major CPA Exam change sees a surge in test takers, and 2023 was no exception: 42,626 new candidates entered the exam pipeline — the highest figure since 2016 — followed by 28,082 new candidates entering the pipeline in 2024. The 2025 testing year, which is not reflected in the Trends report, is trending toward a bounce-back with 16,448 new candidates entering the exam pipeline through the first six months of the year. The new exam model focuses on assessing core competencies in accounting, auditing, tax, and technology while assessing additional competencies in one of three disciplines: Information Systems and Controls; Tax Compliance and Planning; or Business Analysis and Reporting.

The Trends report documents numerous ways the AICPA and stakeholders across the profession are working to build a strong accounting workforce, from expanded student outreach programs, initiatives to remove financial and administrative hurdles to completing the CPA Exam, and faculty bootcamps to reinvigorate accounting education. “The collective efforts by multiple stakeholders to strengthen the pipeline are making an impact,” the report said, “but sustaining momentum is crucial.”

— To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Bryan Strickland at Bryan.Strickland@aicpa-cima.com.