Why accounting programs should hire more adjunct faculty

Undergraduate enrollment in college accounting programs has increased in each of the past three years, prompting suggestions that more accounting instructors are needed to help these students earn degrees in accounting and launch careers in the profession.  

One potential solution to accommodating the rising accounting enrollment numbers is already well established on some campuses nationwide.

Adjunct faculty fill a need at many colleges and universities that deploy a mix of full- and part-time faculty. Full-time faculty with significant academic experience often have a dual mandate: conducting research and teaching. As a result, part-time adjunct faculty members teach many courses. These part-timers, especially those who pursue teaching as a “second act” after long careers in the profession, often bring decades of industry experience as well as a deep understanding of professional development, coaching, and mentoring.

Expanding the adjunct faculty ranks to complement full-time faculty would seem to be a likely solution to support accounting faculty in undergraduate programs.

Under the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business’s (AACSB’s) accreditation standards, for example, institutions can hire adjunct instructors without an advanced degree and classify them as “instructional practitioners” as long as they have substantial professional experience.

But policies that require advanced degrees, e.g., at least a master’s if not a Ph.D., make recruiting and onboarding adjunct faculty challenging and effectively limit both the candidate pool and opportunities for highly qualified retired CPAs. In choosing not to apply the principles-based AACSB faculty qualification guidance, colleges and universities frequently exclude well-qualified retired professionals with extensive experience but no graduate degree (indeed most current retiring partners and senior professionals would not have a graduate degree).

Applying a principles-based approach

Qualifications to consider when evaluating and hiring candidates might include professional experience and expertise, licenses and certifications, awards and recognition, and instructive experience.

This approach recognizes that adjuncts bring significant professional experience, as contemplated by accreditation standards. For example, the AACSB’s 2024 interpretative guidance states that such professional experience may be of such “depth, duration, sophistication, and complexity of their professional experience at the time of hiring outweigh their lack of master’s degree qualifications.” In fact, under AACSB standards, after considering faculty sufficiency and qualification requirements, institutions can hire instructional practitioner-adjuncts representing as much as 10% of the business school faculty.

At Baruch College, “we are fortunate that our New York City location gives us access to exceptional accounting professionals who serve as adjunct professors in the Stan Ross Department of Accountancy, bringing a wealth of professional knowledge and experience into the accounting classrooms,” said Donal Byard, Irving Weinstein Professorship in Accountancy and chair of Baruch’s Department of Accountancy.

Benefits of a principles-based approach

Expanding the adjunct faculty ranks with “professionally qualified” or “instructional practitioner” instructors provides much more than just coverage of course sections. Accounting programs that effectively manage the mix of full- and part-time faculty enjoy substantial benefits, such as:

• Recognition for a faculty mix that includes both substantial academic and substantial professional experience.
• Increased flexibility in deploying instructors.
• Effective cost management, as institutions work to manage both budgetary and funding issues.

Particularly, the mix of both substantial academic and substantial professional experience provides students with deeper experience and perspectives in the classroom through real-life and academic insights. In light of changes in private-sector and entry-level hiring, this is even more important to student development, given the need for so-called “durable” or “professional” skills in the current competitive environment for early-career candidates. (See “Why Academics Should Care About AICPA’s Profession Ready Initiative,” JofA, March 2, 2026.)

How can accounting programs capitalize on this opportunity?

Accounting programs can reevaluate their accreditation-related faculty classification criteria to apply their professional judgment in evaluating candidates with significant professional experience. This would include specific criteria and guidance to ensure a thorough evaluation that considers relevant accreditation standards.

For example, the AACSB interpretive guidance includes a reasonable framework for making informed, well-reasoned, and well-documented decisions and managing the overall faculty mix for undergraduate programs. It is possible that some accreditation standards may need to be reevaluated in this same manner, as well.

Teaching can represent a great “second act” for retired and other CPAs to share their knowledge and experience with the next generations of accountants. And perhaps, most importantly, our accounting students would benefit greatly, and more institutions would contribute to addressing the accounting pipeline with high-quality graduates.

— Dave Sharpe, CPA, is an adjunct professor of accounting at both Baruch College in New York City, and Kean University in Union, N.J. He became an adjunct professor after a 38-year career (28 years as partner) at PwC. Sharpe is active in career management and CPA pipeline initiatives at a number of institutions. To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Jeff Drew at Jeff.Drew@aicpa-cima.com.