Extra Education Does Provide Benefits
RE: Advice to Accounting Students: Smile at the Big Five But Look Elsewhere for a Job
From: Robert K. Elliott, relliott@kpmg.com

Editor's Note: Elliott is immediate past chairman of the American Institute of CPAs.

It appears that the producer (Ed Ketz, a producer of education) is blaming the ultimate customers (the employers) for not being willing to pay much for the product. The Big Five are all growing at double-digit rates and hiring all the talent they can find, while accounting majors (Ketz's immediate customers) are down 23 percent nationally over last three years. An objective observer might say that the problem lies with the producers rather than the consumers. When Ford customers didn't like the product, Ford didn't criticize the customers, it designed the Taurus and lured them back.

I find incredible the statement from an educator that additional university-level education "doesn't really provide any benefits but forces students to incur a high cost." Think of it: an educator who thinks additional education provides no benefits!

Besides employers, the customers for accounting programs are students. Mr. Ketz should address how to win them back to accounting and how to make their education more valuable. Graduates who can't imagine themselves in the shoes of information customers and don't know how to apply modern information technology aren't paid more because they aren't worth more. And you can't really blame it on them, because they followed the advice of their supposedly learned professors.

-- Jan. 8, 2001

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