AICPA President Pushes Back on Department of Education’s Reclassification of Accounting Degrees
Are master’s and doctorate degrees in accounting “professional” degrees? Not anymore, according to the Department of Education.
The department’s Reimagining and Improving Student Education (RISE) committee recently released draft regulations specifying which advanced degrees are considered “professional” for purposes of federal student loans — and accounting wasn’t on the list. Many graduate degrees are also not commonly considered “professional,” such as nursing, engineering, education and architecture, Inside Higher Ed reported.
The Department of Education’s decision isn’t just semantics: If finalized, it will affect the amount of federal aid students can receive. Students in the 11 designated “professional” fields of study will be able to borrow up to $50,000 per year and no more than $200,000 in total. For students in other programs, federal loans will be capped at $20,500 per year and a total of $100,000.
The professions are fighting back: Many professional organizations, including the National Academy of Medicine, the American Nurses Association, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, the Council on Social Work Education and the American Institute of Architects, have spoken out against the department’s decision.
Today, accounting bodies have followed suit. The AICPA and state accounting societies, the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) and the American Accounting Association (AAA), a professional organization representing accounting professors, have all issued official statements in opposition to the decision. Statements from the AICPA and AAA called on the Department of Education to reconsider classifying accounting degrees as professional, and NASBA wrote in its statement that it “will engage policymakers to ensure that accounting is restored to the professional degree category.”
Concern for the reputation of accounting: Accounting body leaders have expressed concerns that the move could weaken the public’s perception of accounting as a learned profession. In a statement, the Ministry of Education clarified that the term “professional” is an “internal definition” used for the purposes of student loans. But Daniel Dustin, president and CEO of NASBA, told CFO Brew he worries people, and especially young people considering accounting as a career, are missing that context.
“Does this have a negative impact on middle and high school students looking for careers? he asked. “Does this have the same impact on students who may not have declared a major yet? He emphasized, as NASBA did in its press release, the longevity of the professional status of accounting. “Certified public accounting has been a licensed profession in the United States since 1896, the third largest profession after doctors and lawyers,” he observed.
In a video posted to LinkedIn, AICPA President and CEO Mark Koziel reaffirmed the status of accounting. “Accounting is absolutely a profession, period,” he said. “It is based on trust, integrity and rigorous standards” and requires a “lifelong commitment to ethical practice and continuing education,” he said, concluding: “These are the hallmarks of a true profession.” »
The decision will come into effect in July 2026, following a comment period. The department said it “has not prejudged the rulemaking process and may make changes in response to public comments.” But if accounting continues to be excluded from the list of professional degrees, leaders of accounting bodies fear that fewer students will choose to pursue graduate degrees in accounting.
Graduate degrees might be harder to finance: “We don’t want to dissuade people from pursuing their education,” Mark Beasley, AAA president and accounting professor at North Carolina State University, told CFO Brew, noting that the department’s decision could “make it financially more difficult” for students to obtain advanced degrees. According to U.S. News and World Report, tuition for a master’s degree in accounting typically ranges from $25,000 to $70,000. Tuition costs vary depending on whether a student opts for a public or private school, or an online or in-person program, but at some schools they are higher than the federal loan limit offered by the Department of Education. The amount “would not cover North Carolina State tuition,” Beasley said.
If the loan limit remains as it is, students who wish to pursue higher education will have to find other ways to finance them. Doctoral students could benefit from assistantships that come with teaching stipends, Beasley said, and it’s possible that accounting firms could help students finance their studies. Private loans are an option, but they have drawbacks: Interest rates might be higher than federal loans, Dustin said, and students might not be able to defer or consolidate them as easily.
And the private student loan industry may not be able to handle an influx of new borrowers. Only 8% of student loans are private, according to Inside Higher Ed. The industry has declined since the Great Recession, according to the New York Times.
Accounting training could suffer: This proposal could even be detrimental to accounting education on a larger scale. If that reduces demand for graduate school, programs could become smaller, Beasley said. And master’s degrees in accounting have already fallen 38% between 2017-2018 and 2023-2024, according to AICPA data. It is possible that fewer students will pursue master’s degrees in the future, given that applicants no longer need to complete 150 credit hours of academic work, or 30 hours more than what is needed for a bachelor’s degree, to take the CPA exam.
Having fewer doctoral students in accounting could also lead to fewer accounting professors in the future. Dustin and Beasley pointed out that many accounting professors are getting older. “We could see a shortage in five to 10 years as retirements increase,” Beasley said.
Ultimately, Beasley said, the department’s decision “works[s] against the public interest. » This could discourage people from undergoing “the types of training, education, and knowledge development necessary to actually be able to make professional judgments that are essential to the reliability of the capital market system here in the United States.”
This report was originally published by CFO Brew.
