Why accounting deserves STEM status, and how you can help

The practice of accounting is increasingly tied to technology, the T in the acronym STEM (science, technology, engineering, math). That tie-in is one reason the AICPA is advocating for accounting to be federally recognized as a STEM education field.

Two AICPA leaders join this episode of the JofA podcast to discuss the STEM topic: Jan Taylor, CPA, CGMA, academic in residence and senior director–Academic & Student Engagement, and Lauren Pfingstag-Vahey, director–Congressional & Political Affairs.

Resources

AICPA & CIMA resource page, Accounting is STEM

JofA coverage of AICPA support for STEM-focused legislation in fall 2023

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• Tracing STEM’s history to the 1950s space race.
• The educator who came up with the acronym used today.
• Why accounting should be considered a STEM education field.
• How a STEM designation could help grow the accounting talent pipeline.
• The number of co-sponsors for a House bill focused on accounting as STEM.
• How members can support advocacy efforts.

Play the episode below or read the edited transcript:

— To comment on this episode or to suggest an idea for another episode, contact Neil Amato at Neil.Amato@aicpa-cima.com.

Transcript

Neil Amato: This is Neil Amato with the Journal of Accountancy. Welcome back to another episode of the JofA podcast. Today on the show, I’m talking with two colleagues about STEM and accounting — more on that acronym and the issue in a bit.

Jan Taylor is academic in residence and senior director–Academic & Student Engagement for AICPA & CIMA. She is a CPA who holds the CGMA designation. Lauren Pfingstag-Vahey is director–Congressional & Political Affairs, based in Washington, D.C. Thank you, Jan and Lauren, for coming on the podcast.

Jan Taylor: Happy to be here.

Lauren Pfingstag-Vahey: Yeah, glad to be here.

Amato: First, STEM — I mentioned that acronym. That’s S-T-E-M. It has become more and more common in education circles. It stands for science, technology, engineering, and math. What’s the background of where STEM originated, Jan, for you?

Taylor: Sure. I think the focus on STEM originated during the Cold War. There was an arms race going on. The United States and the Russians were going back and forth. Then when they launched Sputnik in 1957, it really caused us here in the U.S. to rethink our education, and so the U.S. formed NASA in 1958. Basically, at that point, the race for educating in those four areas — science, technology, engineering, and math — was on. Educators were really encouraged to add curriculum to help equip students for careers in a STEM field.

It was originally given the acronym SMET, S-M-E-T, in the 1990s, but was changed by a woman named Judith Ramaley. She was a U.S. National Science Foundation academic adviser. I think she was a biologist, and she formalized STEM, S-T-E-M, in 2001.

Basically, since then, there have been a lot of bills introduced in Congress — I think Lauren is going to be talking more about our accounting side of that — to increase STEM proficiency among U.S. students, primarily federal aid, federal grant money. While the emphasis for STEM has historically been on the K-through-12 grades, we definitely see that there are implications for post-secondary education discussions. Again, I think we’ll talk a little bit about that during the broadcast.

As STEM careers and programs have evolved, the focus has moved more and more to helping students prepare for those careers that have opportunities in a workforce that is driven by technology, by data, by higher-order thinking skills. Just to talk about that workforce for a second, STEM careers have increased three times the rate of other professions throughout the 2000s. Also, a point that I found of interest is that in 2019, women represented only 27% of STEM workers. I think accounting, if we get it designated as STEM, could really assist with those numbers because women currently outnumber men in graduates from our accounting programs as well as those that are entering public accounting. So, just a brief little history.

Amato: Why is it important that accounting be part of that STEM education field?

Pfingstag-Vahey: I think Jan hinted at it when she talked about federal aid, federal grants, federal investment. The federal government, for a number of decades now, has been investing heavily in STEM education fields. Like Jan said, particularly at the K-through-12 level, because there is an understanding that is backed by data that shows that students who end up in STEM fields have higher earning potential than their non-STEM counterparts.

The federal government has been investing in STEM programs for a while now, knowing that the students who come into those programs not only have higher earning potential, but tend to have more stable careers. Again, this is where our economy is heading. We’re all very focused on advancements in technology and how that can accelerate our economy.

Accounting and STEM, we think is already intrinsically — it should be linked. Everyone I think who’s in the accounting profession is like, well, of course we’re STEM. Why aren’t we STEM? Because there is a required level of understanding of basic mathematics and even I think higher-level mathematics. Jan can maybe jump in with some examples for accounting students and accounting graduates.

Then increasingly, we have seen that accounting students have to have a mastery of technology skills. Not only that, we believe that they are actually contributing to new technologies or advancements in technologies that help the accounting profession. So the fact that we think we already fall under the M in STEM and we increasingly fall under the T in STEM, means we should be STEM, and we should be able to take advantage of that existing and growing pot of federal investment into STEM curricula.

Taylor: I absolutely agree with everything Lauren just said. One of the things I think we’re trying to do at the AICPA is to get the world to just rethink STEM. If you think about sustainability right now is such a huge part of the world economy and how companies are trying to show how they are helping to reduce their carbon footprints and all of that. So a lot of the reporting that’s done, we need some attestation over that, and no one better to do that than those of us who have been trained and understand auditing and assurance.

You think about artificial intelligence and other information-providing technologies. We really are moving from that basic technology into those areas. Again, I think in accounting, we have a greater understanding of that. Lauren alluded to the fact that, obviously, people associate accounting and math, but it’s not just adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing. We have linear regression, we have Benford’s Law, random forests, probability, quantitative risk analysis, option pricing, Bayesian networks. I could go on and on and on. Within the technology there’s R and Python and SQL and Javascript. We can just continue to list all the reasons that, again, as Lauren said, why aren’t we STEM? Why haven’t we already been long recognized? Why weren’t we one of the original STEM fields?

Pfingstag-Vahey: I want to add one more thing. Clearly, like I said, there’s a tangible benefit to accounting being recognized as a STEM field. There’s that existing pot of federal and state money that could help our profession and help our field. The intangible benefits are countless, but the one that really stands out to me is, I think we struggle as a profession in terms of making young people aware that we exist. This exists as an incredible career, and I think a lot of students are looking for, what’s the career in a STEM field? What are my STEM options? Because that’s where I’m going to be able to have a great high-paying, rewarding career.

If we are appropriately recognized as a STEM profession or a STEM degree, students may not pass us by. We’d be under a list and they’d say, it’s not just computer science and engineering. Accounting is a STEM profession. This is the intangible benefit that I see that would be huge if we are recognized at the federal level is there might be increased awareness of accounting as a great career option for younger students.

Amato: Yeah, the pipeline of available finance professionals, it’s been much discussed on this podcast on social media, really a lot of places just in the accounting world. So you’ve touched on that talent tie-in. Is there anything more to add on that front?

Pfingstag-Vahey: Well, part of the pipeline initiative and part of why we are so eager to see accounting recognized as a STEM field or as a STEM profession is it’s not just that there’s a lack of bodies entering the pipeline or accounting students sitting for the CPA Exam. There’s a lack of diversity in those bodies. We want to make sure that the accounting profession is reflective and inclusive of the communities they serve because we think that people who are reflective and inclusive of the communities they served are better positioned to solve the issues facing those clients.

And so at the federal level, particularly under the current administration, a real emphasis on making sure that students of color, underrepresented, maybe low-income students who are right now disproportionately excluded from STEM education are included. And so part of our effort is to make sure that not only are there more people entering the pipeline, but that that pipeline is becoming increasingly diverse.

Amato: In late September, the AICPA voiced strong support for legislation. This was covered in the Journal of Accountancy, and we’ll link to that article in the show notes for this episode. The legislation would recognize the link between accounting and STEM. What’s the update since that late September time frame on the legislative front?

Pfingstag-Vahey: Well, the most important update is that the House bill has exploded in popularity. We have two bills. There’s a House bill and a Senate bill. Both are bipartisan. Both are championed by really well-known, well-liked legislators. The House bill, H.R. 3541, is called the Accounting STEM Pursuit Act. It started off with maybe 20 co-sponsors in this current session of Congress. We’re at 46 and counting, and we’re getting emails every other day from congressional staff inquiring about this bill.

I think fewer than 1% of all bills ever introduced at the federal level get to the magical 100 co-sponsor number. We’re halfway there. I see a path for us to get there by the end of the calendar year. Just because every session of Congress that starts anew, you have to reintroduce legislation, we would probably need to reintroduce the legislation again in the 119th Congress. But if we’re starting from, after retirements and people losing elections, maybe 75 co-sponsors, that’s huge. That puts us in the top echelon of popular bills, and it sets us up for success in terms of legislation passing in, I would say, 2025 or 2026.

Amato: What are some of the things that the profession is doing to keep this momentum going, I guess?

Taylor: A few things. At the AICPA in particular, I know that Lauren’s team has worked on — we have a page on our AICPA & CIMA website that talks about the federal efforts that she just alluded to and talked about. But basically what we’re trying to do is to help not only those federal lawmakers understand the importance of accounting in STEM, but also, I’ve gone to the American School Counselors Association, and I’ve spoken to these school counselors from across the nation.

To be honest, they didn’t even want to talk to me about accounting until I mentioned that we are pursuing this K-through-12 legislation. And they were like, man, if you could get that in, we will have such an opportunity to share with students. We’ve got resources for them. They’ve asked for those resources in Spanish. They’ve asked for resources to give to parents. Just the response that I received back from them when I said that we were hopeful that we would be able to be recognized or be able to at least promote accounting as a STEM field. It made such a huge difference just in that one small population.

But we’re trying to let people know that we see accounting as STEM. We have outreach materials. We have articles that help to explain why accounting should be STEM. We have social media posts. We have infographics. We have a lot of things that we can just hand out to them. On the educator platform that we have, ThisWayToCPA.com, we have resources for educators that would like to get involved in this effort. Primarily, we’ve got letters that they can send to their federal lawmakers to say, here’s why we think you should be co-sponsoring this legislation, if they are not in fact already doing so. And if they are, to thank them for doing that. Just a lot of resources that are available on our website to get the word out to support, to help them understand what it is that they can be doing to support this effort.

Amato: I will make sure that we link to some of those resources in the show notes. Again, as I said, appreciate that. Beyond the resources and some of the other things we’ve talked about, anything else you think listeners should know about in closing on this topic?

Pfingstag-Vahey: I would say, if you are someone who enjoys interacting with your member of Congress or with your U.S. senators, reach out to them. Use the channels that they have. It’s emails, it’s phone calls, it’s pen-and-paper letters. Reach out to those members and encourage them to co-sponsor either the House bill or the Senate bill. Most legislators will look at the House bill and the numbers and go, well, of course, I’ve got to be on this. I don’t want to miss this train.

But the members of Congress really do listen, and their staffers track who writes in or who calls in and on what issues, and they respond to that. If you are someone who enjoys having those interactions, I’d say do it and encourage your member of Congress and your senators to co-sponsor those bills. Those numbers, in case they’re helpful, the House bill is H.R. 3541 and the Senate bill is S. 1705.

Amato: Jan Taylor, Lauren Pfingstag-Vahey, thank you for being on the podcast. We appreciate your time today.

Pfingstag-Vahey: Thank you so much, Neil.

Taylor: Thank you, Neil.