Of course not. It felt ridiculous just typing the question but the AICPA has such a claim published on their site stating they expect minority CPA candidates to increase as more requirements to become a licensed CPA are required. I found this while reading through FAQs related to the 150 hour education requirement adopted by most states (you can read my thoughts about that here). and had to read it multiple times before being sure I read it correctly.
I really do hate to call people out who are making an honest effort…but the effort on AICPA’s part here is questionable so here we go.
A few months ago I wrote a post titled Why Are There Still So Few Black CPAs which generated some great discussion here on the blog and in other professional groups/communities I belong to, but it seems that discussion was unnecessary. As it turns out, I went over to the AICPA website to get some information on the 150 requirement in California and stumbled across the unimaginable. I found myself face to face with the answer so many have been searching for, and it was buried on the AICPA site this whole time. As you can see in the image above, students who wanted to pursue a masters will now find accounting more attractive because it requires the equivalent of a masters degree.
Who knows when this information was last updated since there’s no timestamp on the FAQs but I’m fairly sure adding requirements hasn’t and isn’t making accounting more attractive to people of color. I’m thinking maybe the problem is the bar wasn’t set high enough. Using the logic of whoever wrote the answer to that question, if the requirement to become a licensed CPA was a PhD in accounting then we’d be sure to see minorities flocking to the accounting profession.
If only it were that simple. Oh and since when and in what place is taking out 100k in debt not a barrier? I appreciate their attempt to be bold on the FAQ answer here, but that’s not even close to reality. This just goes to show the people doing the messaging for the AICPA are out of touch with the potential minority CPA audience they claim they want to reach.
What was your first reaction when reading the answer to the question? Let me know in the comments!
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Eric Butts says
April 3, 2014 at 2:53 AMThat makes two of us. Oddly enough, I had someone tell me it made perfect sense. I went back to clarify just to make sure he read correctly. Still waiting to hear back…