NPAG Accounting Talent Strategy Report: Recommendation #3 – Grow Support for CPA Exam Candidates
The National Pipeline Advisory Group (NPAG) has released its Accounting Talent Strategy Report, sharing the results of months of research and feedback on how to improve the accounting talent pipeline. This series of six articles presents a brief overview of the recommendations outlined in the report.
As part of its research, NPAG studied ways to improve the CPA Exam preparation and testing experience. In its report, NPAG stresses that just as its education-related recommendations are not aimed at making the accounting curriculum less rigorous, its CPA Exam recommendations are not intended to make the exam easier to pass.
Taking the Exam as Students Complete Coursework
NPAG’s first recommendation is to shift some of the testing to immediately after students complete coursework. In its report, NPAG notes this idea could create several risks. Although students may have completed some accounting coursework, they may not be equipped to pass an exam section as the exam is designed for those with one to two years of experience. Another issue could be that students might not have a future employer ready to assist with exam-related costs.
Monitoring and Sharing Employer Best Practices
The second recommendation relates to employer best practices in CPA Exam support. NPAG advises the profession to assess, adjust and promote employer best practices on a continual basis. Suggested solutions include investing in an exam coach for employees, adjusting workloads around exam peak times and having staff mentors available.
Counting Exam Prep Courses Toward College Credit
In NPAG’s student survey, 62% of respondents said they strongly favor allowing CPA Exam prep courses to count toward college credit. In order for this idea to be carried out, there would have to be agreement among the major stakeholders of the profession on what type of courses would qualify and what type of entities could offer them.
Developing a Cloud-Based Data Warehouse
Most CPA Exam and candidate data is currently stored by individual state boards of accountancy. In its report, NPAG reasons that exam-related data could be better utilized for tracking trends and analyzing programs if it were stored in a more centralized data warehouse. NPAG contends that without a unified data set, many of its other suggestions regarding candidate support would have limited success or could not be implemented.
Exploring Faster Score Release Time Frames
To allow candidates to know where to focus their studies sooner, NPAG recommends the AICPA send an advisory score to NASBA within a few days of a candidate’s test date. The advisory score would then be passed on to the candidate. In order for this to be implemented, NASBA and state boards of accountancy would need to provide both the advisory and final scores. NPAG notes this would require some additional systems developments.
Simplifying State Board Testing Requirements
State board requirements to begin testing differ throughout the country. To better align these requirements across jurisdictions, the AICPA, NASBA and state stakeholders are working to create a list of priority requirements. NPAG believes these efforts should continue, focusing on simplification and commonality wherever possible. Establishing commonality would require agreement between states and NASBA, and in instances where requirements are written into law, the support of state legislators.
Simplifying the Eligibility Process
As most students do not take all four sections of the exam within their eligibility window, NPAG recommends simplifying the eligibility process. One idea NPAG suggests in the report is to implement a single national eligibility period lasting 30 months. A second possibility put forward is for a candidate’s initial eligibility to become permanent.
Developing Additional Practice Tests
NPAG’s final recommendation is to develop more practice test options to add to the current sample test offered by the AICPA. Creating additional practice tests that are not necessarily an indicator of future performance but offer experience with practice questions could be beneficial for candidates and students. It could also ease the cost of exam prep materials.
More Information
For more details on this topic, or to read the full Accounting Talent Strategy Report, visit https://www.accountingpipeline.org.