Another Record Breaker for Accounting Degrees

The number of accounting graduates continues to rise, according to an AICPA report. More than 66,000 people obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting during 2007-08, the most since the AICPA began tracking the data in 1972, representing a 3.5 percent rise over 2006-07.

Will there be jobs waiting for the recent graduates? The study reports that hiring has declined overall as a result of the economy, but midsize to large regional firms (50-200) reported an increase in hiring new accountants. Hiring started off strong, but tailed off by 2007-08 as the economy worsened, according to the report.

Other findings:

• The gender ratio of graduates is 51 percent female to 49 percent male, a one-percent increase in the male cohort.
• Master’s degrees represent 26 percent of the total number of graduates, an increase of under 1 percent from the previous year.
• Ethnicity of graduates is 30 percent minority, (including “unknown”) down slightly from 32 percent in 2006-07. “African-American graduates remained level at 7 percent, Hispanic/Latino representation rose to 6 percent from 5 percent, Asian graduates remained at 8 percent, and other (mixed race or unidentified) decreased from 11 percent to 9 percent of that total,” according to the AICPA.
• 80 percent of schools said they include some IFRS material in their curriculum, and another 15 percent will add it by Fall 2009. Most others said they will include IFRS in some form by 2010.

Read the full report here.