Lower-cost accounting master’s programs could help with an industry desperately in need of talent

Ever since its 2019 peak, the accounting industry has faced a steady decline in its talent pool. The number of employed accountants and auditors dropped a staggering 17% between 2019 and 2021, according to a Bloomberg Tax analysis. Meanwhile, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects there will be more than 136,000 open accounting and auditing positions per year until 2031. 

While accounting is often considered a relatively steady job that will stand the test of time, salaries in this field haven’t grown at the same rate as other professional services occupations like investment banking and consulting. The median salary for accountants and auditors is about $77,000, according to the BLS, while consultants make $93,000 and investment bankers earn more than $95,000.

Accountants who complete 150 hours in an undergraduate or graduate program and pass a series of exams can become certified public accountants (CPAs), who earn about $90,000 per year, on average, according to Indeed. A bachelor’s degree program is typically is only 120 hours, so students who are interested in pursuing a career as a CPA often have to complete more credits after undergrad—often done through a master’s degree program in accounting. 

“It’s a great thing that they want the students to have one more year of education, but it obviously also adds to the cost of their education,” Gareth James, dean of the Goizueta Business School at Emory University, tells Fortune. “And if the salaries are not as high as some other areas, that presents a challenge in getting students into” accounting.

With such a high barrier to entry in terms of time and cost, what affordable options do accounting hopefuls have?

The average cost of a four-year college degree at a public university is about $25,000 per year, or $100,000 total, according to the Education Data Initiative. However, private school education can cost double that amount without merit- or need-based scholarships. For example, Emory costs more than $50,000 per year, and the school only offers its master’s in accounting program to current students in its undergraduate business program.

“What we’re seeing is that students are opting for a low-cost option for that fifth year,” James says. “A university like Emory [has] a great brand and a great education, but is a little more expensive perhaps than some of the low-cost programs out there.”

Some more affordable options for a master’s in accounting, sometimes referred to as a fifth-year accounting degree, include the University of Massachusetts–Amherst and Northern Illinois University, both of which cost slightly more than $25,000 to complete. These programs both are ranked on Fortune’s list of best online master’s of accounting programs. 

Aside from tuition, studying for and actually taking the CPA exams can cost thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of time. Self-study courses can cost more than $2,000, according to the Minnesota Society of CPAs (MNCPA). The cost of the exams can vary by state, but estimates from the Accounting Institute of Success show that between test preparation, materials, and actually taking the exam, CPA hopefuls will shell out more than $3,000 total.

One explanation for the shortage of accountants is technology transformation, James says, meaning that machine learning and other artificial intelligence algorithms have taken on some of the more “menial” tasks in accounting, such as checking transactions on an audit. 

“There’s a lot of work that recently graduated students used to do in accounting that was really quite menial,” James says. “You can have a program go through literally millions of transactions in a few seconds looking for patterns that are unusual that might suggest either an error or an intentional transaction that shouldn’t be in there.”

Since some of the more entry-level accounting jobs have been taken over by emerging technologies, firms are having a tougher time finding professionals to fill higher-level positions. 

Emerging technologies have had both a “positive and a negative impact on the accounting industry,” James says. “This means there’s an opportunity for some more interesting work for them, but it also means that some of that industry has actually had a hard time finding enough students at the moment.”

The shortage of accountants can also be attributed to retirements and people leaving the workforce, as well as an increase in demand for accountants in general, according to the Controllers Council. Industry retention has also been a challenge, shows a 2022 report by Deloitte, a Big 4 accounting firm.

More than 57% of accounting hiring managers reported that talent was leaving for jobs with higher pay. But what’s most alarming is more than 82% of hiring managers say they’ll have to work hard to attract and retain accounting talent, the Deloitte report shows.