Honors Program
University Honors
Date of Award
5-2025
Thesis Professor(s)
Emily Cokeley
Thesis Professor Department
Accountancy
Thesis Reader(s)
Joel Faidley
Abstract
The accounting profession is currently facing a well-documented talent shortage that has been building for a number of years. Some of the factors leading to this are fewer students choosing accounting because of higher wages in other careers as well as many CPAs retiring in the coming years. This paper considers the challenges of getting students in the door to accounting and examines the reasons why they are not choosing accounting. It also examines what accounting firms are doing to fight the workforce shortage, gains the perspective of state CPA societies on the 150 hour rule and how it is a barrier to entry, and considers what has already been accomplished and what is currently being done to fix the accountant pipeline issue. All of this information was taken into consideration to form a comprehensive overview of the accounting shortage. Recommendations are provided concerning ways to improve on what is already being done and new tactics that could be implemented to encourage students to consider a career in accounting.
Publisher
East Tennessee State University
Document Type
Honors Thesis - Open Access
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Hixon, Kellen T., "Considerations Regarding the Accountant Shortage, Accounting Student Recruitment, and Efforts to Mitigate the Ongoing Shortage" (2025). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 830. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/830
Copyright
Copyright by the authors.
