No one wants to be an accountant anymore, but a program aimed at high schoolers looks to fix the shortage
Accounting firms are facing a significant staffing shortage.
Between the long hours, stressful deadlines and unflattering stereotype, more people are quitting the profession then going into it.
Instead, students straight out of college are choosing to pursue careers in related fields like investment banking, consulting or data analysis. The additional credit hours required to earn a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) license don't help either.
To tap the next generation of number crunchers, The Deloitte Foundation, a national nonprofit that supports teaching, research and curriculum innovation in accounting and business, is trying a new strategy to address the talent pipeline problem — by appealing directly to teenagers.
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Together, Deloitte, Urban Assembly and Outlier.org, which works with schools to offer for-credit online college courses, are kicking off a dual enrollment pilot program in New York City.
Starting in the fall, some public high school juniors and seniors can take Intro to Financial Accounting and earn three college credits through the University of Pittsburgh, which they can then transfer to the college of their choice.
Although it's been around for decades, dual enrollment has only recently started to catch on as a way to knock out some college credits while still in high school, according to a report by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, which showed a jump in the number of students completing coursework this way.
Unlike Advanced Placement, these programs are not restricted to high school students on a specific
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