Operation sexy bean counter
He was obsessed with the Hubble telescope, and his bedroom ceiling was dotted with plastic glow-in-the-dark stars. When the Scholastic Book Fair came to his library, he'd beg his parents for cash to buy NASA photo books. To him, space science seemed the pinnacle of innovation, excitement, and existentialism.
So when, as a sophomore in college, he told his parents he was going to major in accounting, they gave him what Bryan (which isn't his real name) could describe only as "a look."
Certified public accountants have long been cast as penny-pinching list checkers with vanilla personalities and a zeal for taxes, but that stereotype seems to turn off Gen Z more than any previous generation. That perception plus the industry's actual hurdles and pitfalls have compounded in the past several years to create a nationwide accountant shortage.
The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants says about 65,000 students in the US completed bachelor's or master's degrees in accounting in the 2021-22 school year, 18% fewer than a decade earlier. Of those who study accounting, only a portion become certified public accountants. About 30,000 people took the CPA exam in 2022, compared with nearly 50,000 people in 2010.
