Editor’s note: This article was updated on April 26, 2024.
The National Pipeline Advisory Group (NPAG) is committed to developing a unified strategy that reflects the needs of multiple stakeholders, leverages unbiased research, and leads to meaningful change. To ensure any recommendations are grounded in data and reflect input from all stakeholders, we are pursuing research and outreach activities, including a national survey planned for 2024. The findings of these efforts will help the advisory group identify root causes of pipeline attrition, prioritize key areas for improvement, and ultimately shape solutions.
The advisory group is also leveraging existing insights from a variety of sources, including state CPA societies, accounting regulatory bodies, academic research institutes, government agencies, and many others. Here is a growing list of the public data being used to inform NPAG conversations and recommendations.
- CPA Talent Pipeline Resources: Help Your Candidates Pass the CPA Exam & Get Licensed – Indiana CPA Society (April 2024)
- Current Term Enrollment Estimates: Fall 2023 – National Student Clearinghouse (January 2024)
- Occupational Licensing and Minority Participation in Professional Labor Markets – Journal of Accounting Research (January 2024)
- The CPA Pipeline: Crisis and Opportunity – Pennsylvania Institute of CPAs (December 2023)
- How insights from Gen Z are helping to shape the accounting profession of the future – EY (November 2023)
- Fast Facts 2023 – Institute of International Education (November 2023)
- 2023 Trends Report – Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (October 2023)
- Talent Retention in the US Accounting and Finance Profession – Institute of Management Accountants and Robert Half Talent Solutions (October 2023)
- Increasing Diversity in the Accounting Profession Pipeline: Challenges and Opportunities – Center for Audit Quality (July 2023)
- 2023 State of Accounting Firms Trends Report – Caseware (June 2023)
- Righting Retention: A Look into the accounting profession’s greatest management challenge – Illinois CPA Society (summer 2023)
- Is 150 Too Many? – Virginia Society of CPAs (May 2023)
- Undergraduate Degree Earners: Academic Year 2022-23 – National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (March 2023)
- State of the Education Market: Trends and Insights in Key Graduate Disciplines – Wiley (March 2023)
- State of the Education Market: Trends and Insights in Key Undergraduate Disciplines – Wiley (February 2023)
- Diversifying US Accounting Talent A Critical Imperative to Achieve Transformational Outcomes – Institute of Management Accountants and California Society of CPAs (October 2021)
- A CPA Pipeline Report: Decoding the Decline – Illinois CPA Society (June 2021)
- Shift in Working-Age Population Relative to Older and Younger Americans – US Census Bureau (June 2020)
- Occupational Licensing and Accountant Quality: Evidence from the 150-Hour Rule – Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics (February 2019)
We will continue to add data sources to this list as they are reviewed by the NPAG.