Enrollment for undergraduate accounting majors increased for the third year in a row last fall, according to newly released figures.
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Data from the National Student Clearinghouse’s Final Fall Enrollment Trends 2025 showed overall accounting undergraduate enrollment grew by 7.3% year over year in the semester of fall 2025, compared to 1.2% for enrollment across all majors. That comes after an 11.3% rise in enrollment for accounting majors in the fall of 2024 and a 1.9% increase in the fall of 2023 at the undergraduate level.
“Three straight years of growth is energizing for the profession,” said the AICPA CEO of public accounting Susan Coffey in a statement Tuesday. “The fact that enrollment was up this fall versus competitive fields of study signals that students are seeing the purpose, trust, value and financial security that accounting delivers – and they’re choosing it.”
The report indicated that total postsecondary accounting enrollment in 2025 rose to 313,397 students, up from 293,759 in 2024. That includes enrollment at four-year colleges and universities, community colleges, hybrid institutions that primarily offer associate’s degrees and graduate schools.
Accounting enrollment at four-year undergraduate programs grew 7.4% to 204,283 in fall 2025, the third straight year-over-year increase. In comparison, total enrollment across all program areas at the four-year undergraduate level grew 1.4% at public institutions and declined at private institutions.
One out of eight undergraduate business students majored in accounting last fall, an increase from one in nine in 2023. At the graduate level, accounting enrollment increased a little under half a percentage point to 25,580 students. While that was a modest amount of growth, the increases in accounting graduate-level enrollment nevertheless outstripped the growth in overall graduate business, management and marketing programs, representing the first year-over-year increase in graduate accounting enrollment since 2019.
The AICPA said it’s continuing to work with educators, accounting firms and other employers, state CPA societies and other accounting bodies to promote workforce development and career opportunities in the profession through its ThisWaytoCPA.com initiative.
