Where have all the accounting students gone?

• Author: McCRARY, DEANNA

Over the last 10 years, California's colleges and universities have experienced a 30-50 percent decline in the number of students majoring in accounting. Traditional accounting programs no longer attract the best and brightest, nor are they keeping up with marketplace realities. In short, they are in real danger of becoming extinct.

"Were waiting to see what happens with the 150-hour requirement in California," says Joseph Mori, accounting department chair at San Jose State University. "If it doesn't happen at all, we'll probably get out of the traditional accounting business."

"The students who stay here in the accounting program do stay focused and go on to get their CPA. But the numbers aren't as high as they have been," says Maureen Beck, director of career development services at Loyola Marymount University. Beck notes that Loyola Marymount's intermediate accounting class this year is down to 27 students, compared to 70 in the fall of 1996.

FACTORS INFLUENCING THE DECLINE

Educators and college recruiters point to a number of factors to explain the decline. They claim that students seek exciting work with lots of autonomy right out of college as well as substantial compensation packages.

"Students used to be willing to come in, do their time, work in the trenches and all that, without having special, exciting projects to work on," says Beck. "What we're seeing with new hires today is that if those needs aren't met and the satisfaction doesn't come quickly enough, they may leave the firm."

Additionally, educators claim that the majority of young people don't understand what accountants do, or the myriad directions an accounting career can take. The image of spending one's life stuck behind a computer tapping out numbers on a calculator and talking to no one, is certainly not as sexy to a high school student or college sophomore as a cell-phone toting, SUV-driving IT professional. Although in reality, the latter might end up spending more time in front of a computer than any accountant ever would-at least he's "shown the money" from the get-go. (See entry-level salary comparisons, this page.)

Scott McConnell, an accounting major in his junior year at Loyola Marymount, a small, private, liberal arts school in Los Angeles that is often courted by the Big Five, says that when he tells freshmen or sophomores that he is an accounting major, they say, "Eeww--why?"

"Students don't realize that with accounting there is a lot of interaction with people, as opposed to sitting behind a desk or computer all day typing numbers into a calculator. I think that is still a common perception," McConnell says.

McConnell's sister is an accountant with KPMG, so he had an insider's track into the realities of what it's really like to be an accountant today. He noticed that she has a lot of interaction with many different people, which influenced his decision to major in accounting. But McConnell also is taking a track many students today choose-a double major in accounting and information systems.

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