Forget Plastics – it’s now “Accounting!”

“Ben, I want to say just one word to you… ‘Plastics.’”

For those of you like me old enough to remember the avuncular advice a young Dustin Hoffman received during the classic party scene in “The Graduate,” should they ever update that to reflect the 21^st century zeitgeist, the one word would now be “accounting.”

Why?

According to recent studies, both enrollments in accounting programs and accounting hires at public firms reached all- time highs this year.

Undergraduate and graduate accounting program enrollments combined to exceed 250,000 for the first time, according to the 2015 Trends: In the Supply of Accounting Graduates and Demand for Public Accounting Recruits report from the AICPA.

According to the study, during the 2013-2014 academic year total accounting program enrollments reached 253,082, up from 240,379 during 2011-12. Master’s degree enrollments increased 19 percent – from 38,809 in 2011-12 to 46,011 in 2013-14 – while bachelor’s degree enrollments went up from 201,570 in 2011-12 to 207,071 in 2013-14, a 3-percent boost.

The news was just as encouraging on the recruiting side.

Accounting firms hired a record number of accounting graduates in 2014, representing a 7 percent spike since 2012. Master’s degree hires saw the largest growth at 11 percent, while bachelor’s degree hires increased 5 percent. As a percentage of total hires in 2014, new hires with bachelor’s degrees and Master’s degrees increased 3 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

The AICPA report also said that the percentage of women partners at public accounting firms increased from 19 percent in 2012 to 24 percent in 2014. The gender distribution of professional staff at all firms is now 52 percent male and 48 percent female.

And to think I begged both my daughters to pursue accounting degrees upon their high school graduation, and of course much like me asking them to clean their rooms, my advice was quickly ignored.

The above represents quite a juxtaposition from 15 years ago when I first began covering accounting. Back then the profession was losing much of its future pipeline to the more enticing tech sector or a career in Wall Street. In truth it took much needed focus off promoting the CPA credential and as a result, both enrollment and recruiting paid a heavy price.

Dustin Hoffman is now 78 and while we never learned if his Benjamin Braddock character ever pursued a career in plastics, (after he stole away neighbor Elaine Robinson at her wedding) there’s a better than average chance he might have been a CPA today.