The AICPA’s Experience, Learn & Earn (ELE) Program — controversial among some educators for reasons explained in depth here — required accounting employers to sign up for the program when first launched last year but has now opened the program up to “non-affiliated” graduates as long as the graduate is employed full time. The ELE is described by the AICPA as “an integrated education and experience program for individuals to earn up to 30 of the 150 credit hours of required education for CPA licensure at a significantly reduced cost.” That cost is $150 per credit through Tulane University’s School of Professional Advancement (SoPA), so $4500 to get your extra 30 units for CPA licensure. As the name implies, registrants are to receive a mix of university learning as well as learning on the job, hence the “experience” in Experience, Learn & Earn.
ELE is one of several initiatives The Powers That Be have launched in response to the decline in CPA candidates that’s been underway since numbers peaked in 2016.
There is typically a flood of candidates ahead of major exam changes (like CPA Evolution that dropped at the start of this year), you can see this in the chart above as candidate numbers swelled in 2010 ahead of the large CBT-e change in 2011. However, Surgent’s Liz Kolar said in late 2023 that her CPA review company was “seeing more of a ripple than a tsunami this year.” Uh-oh.
Journal of Accountancy said in April that the ELE program had 38 participants. In a recent announcement, NASBA says ELE now has 105 students enrolled for this fall, representing more than 50 employers.
This is the list of ELE-registered employers as of October 2024:
Notice who is suspiciously absent from the above list: the four firms that employ the most accounting graduates on the planet. EY has its own 150-hour alternative called the EY Career Path Accelerator while PwC launched a pilot program with St. Peter’s University in New Jersey to offer a “work for credit” situation for their CPA aspirants.
Registration for the ELE’s spring 2025 semester is currently open until Jan. 1, 2025 and, as mentioned above, is now open to any accounting graduate who is “earning a paycheck from an employer not associated with the program.”
Here’s what NASBA said in their announcement:
“While we designed the program for accounting graduates and entry-level professionals, it’s gratifying to see participants from a diverse range of states, age groups, gender and ethnicities,” said Mike Decker, AICPA’s vice president of CPA examination and pipeline. “That’s a testament to the enduring value of the CPA credential, from the newest graduates to mid-career professionals.”
The ELE program is for individuals who have completed their bachelor’s degree and core accounting classes but possess fewer than the 150 credit hours required for licensure. Here’s how the program works:
- Full-time, employed accounting graduates can either join through an ELE-affiliated employer or sign up on their own.
- Program participants earn up to 30 university credits through online courses, and credit-hour costs are set at highly affordable rates.
- Participating employers are expected to support their employees, examples of which may include, but are not limited to:
- flexible work schedule
- tuition reimbursement
- mentoring to help program participants work toward their CPA license
- The program is open to all employer types, including not-for-profit, businesses and government entities.
- Accounting graduates who sign up on their own rather than through participating employers may not necessarily have the same support or mentoring opportunities as those who have direct sponsorship.
IDK, this is smelling a little desperate no? 105 is 0.16% of the 67,336 people who sat for the CPA exam in 2022. Really making a difference there, guys.
Dear reader is invited to weigh in on the Experience, Earn & Learn program or any other pipeline initiative in the comments or via email.