Accounting Educators Strategize Tactics

BY KATHLEEN HOFFELDER, NJCPA SENIOR CONTENT EDITOR

The New Jersey Society of CPAs (NJCPA) hosted three accounting educators in a panel discussion in October to discuss what is currently working and what still needs to be done to entice more students into accounting programs and become CPAs. Don Meyer, chief marketing officer at the NJCPA and moderator of the panel, said students as well as graduates need support in getting to the CPA license step.

ENGAGEMENT HELPS

Barry R. Palatnik, CPA, Ed.D, MBA, associate professor and accounting program chair at Stockton University, noted that explaining what a CPA can do the old-fashioned, in-person way can make a difference with students. “Last summer, we had a lot of open houses and instantdecision days at Stockton. I made it my purpose to go to pretty much every single one and I told a story. I focused on the accounting students, but I also looked at the undecided majors and I sat at those tables and told them what accounting can do for you,” he said. The number of students enrolled at Stockton increased last fall along with accounting majors. “We’ve been up pretty significantly from the other programs.”

Steven J. Budryk, CPA, MS, manager at Traphagen CPAs & Wealth Advisors and adjunct professor at Ramapo College of New Jersey, also saw rising enrollment overall and in accounting majors. “They just brought in their largest amount of freshman at Ramapo College in history, and the accounting class is also going up. We saw a slight decline in recent years, but it has started to pick up,” he said. “It’s super exciting just to see that trend back upwards.”

A similar theme played out at Rutgers Business School-New Brunswick, where Sarah L. O’Rourke, CPA, is an assistant professor of professional practice in the Department of Accounting & Information Systems. She explained that enrollments in accounting majors were up. “It’s coming back, slowly but surely,” she added.

DRIVE TO CPA

Getting students to stay in those classes and advance further in their journey are often tougher steps to mount. Panelists noted that students today need some level of hand holding while taking the higher-level accounting courses and encouragement to sit for the CPA Exam and go into the accounting profession.

O’Rourke initiated a “Road to CPA” program at Rutgers during the COVID pandemic that works to make the drive to obtaining a CPA license easier. To her, it is designed to be inclusive and open to all accounting majors. “Some students really know exactly what they want to do and understand the CPA path…and other students are lost and need a lot more guidance. The idea is to meet students where they are at,” she said. Road to CPA includes career guidance, mentoring, a semester-long review course for the Financial Accounting and Reporting (FAR) section of the Exam and even an artificial intelligence (AI) and accounting speaker series.

MORE THAN STUDYING

Beyond the classroom is perhaps just as important as what courses are being taught for today’s accounting students. According to Budryk, the coveted internship during college is still crucial for landing jobs once students graduate. “Any experience is great experience,” he explained. Ramapo has co-op programs, where the student works one-on-one with a professor, whether accounting or in another business program, and the student is working in the profession for credit, he noted. “Coupling academia and the industry is a great balance.”

Teachers also need to think beyond just the classroom material. Accounting students need to be taught with “care and compassion,” added Palatnik. To him, there needs to be a focus on learning along with rigor, instead of the typical “weed-out” classes of the past. “The content is the same, but it’s the way you deliver the material, which is critical.”

Watch the full discussion at youtu.be/DuTq9PIdXrw.