Gen Z is reviving this boring job that millennials and boomers abandoned—and it's helping them land six-figure careers straight out of college
As millions of boomer accountants gear up for retirement, the industry is facing a talent shortage crisis. While it's been lamented as one of America's most boring jobs and headed down a path of extinction, Gen Z is realizing the six-figure career opportunity—and gaining experience by helping individuals file their taxes for free.
The IRS is on DOGE's chopping block, the extension of tax cuts is up in the air, and Tax Day is approaching in just days—and accountants are so fed up with the stress that they're leaving the industry in droves.
Some 340,000 accountants have already left their calculators behind and quit in the last five years, and some estimates suggest that 75% of those remaining are expected to retire in the next decade.
For a field that is often judged as less exciting than others (according to one study, it is the second-most-stereotyped job of boring people), the crisis couldn't get much worse.
Now, Gen Z is coming to the rescue.
'Accounting is the science of the business world,' says Alana Kelley, a third-year accounting and biohealth science major at Oregon State University who has helped dozens of families file their taxes this season as part of her school's Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program.
One was a goat farmer who only had a landline, but no access to the internet. Another was a young woman who was financially supporting her sister. Kelley was able to help them obtain a life-changing $6,000 back in refunds. One of Kelley's peers, Tristan Klascius—a third-year studying accounting and finance—helped an elderly woman gain access to her much-needed Social Security income that she otherwise couldn't figure out.
Kelley and Klascius are just two examples of the Gen Zers who are increasingly viewing accounting not as a monotonous chore but as a way to completely transform people's lives.
Their actions are already helping save Americans millions of dollars through free tax help through a partnership with the IRS and close to two dozen universities.
The IRS's VITA program began over 50 years ago at California State University, Northridge to aid low-income and underserved communities in navigating the increasingly complicated tax system.
Last year alone, an army of more than 280 CSUN students helped over 9,000 low-income taxpayers claim nearly $11 million in tax refunds and $3.6 million in tax credits—plus save them over $2 million in tax preparation fees.
In the weeks leading up to Tax Day, some students work from 10 in the morning until 10 at night, helping families understand how much money they could get refunded or owe back.
And while the impact may seem minimal, especially considering that $8.2 billion in Earned Income Tax Credits were left on the table by Americans in the 2021 tax year, every return and refund dollar can matter for struggling families. Some 66% of Americans feel like they are now living paycheck to paycheck.
The CSUN program's current director, Rafael Efrat, tells Fortune that VITA at universities is an embodiment of the good that can come out of the accounting profession and reshape hundreds of young people's views.
Even Gen Zers outside of the business school—studying subjects like computer science, public health, and psychology—have been eager to join the tax assistance program.
'While accounting may have a certain image in the background among young people of being not as intriguing and exciting, once they actually engage in the practice and see how it plays out in a real world, it changes people's mind and views,' Efrat says.
It's not just low-income Americans getting their taxes filed for free who are set to gain from VITA programs. The student volunteers, too, are obtaining unique hands-on skills by working with clients with sometimes complicated tax situations—and gaining the confidence needed to excel on day one when they graduate and land a six-figure-paying job.
'We throw the students into the water, essentially, and let them swim, and then students actually live up to the challenge,' Efrat says.
Despite the median total pay of an accountant being $87,000 (or even $200,000 for certified public accountants (CPAs), getting students excited about taxes remains the ultimate challenge.
The number of bachelor's degrees awarded in accounting peaked in 2015–16, and the years following each saw decreases by about 1%–3%, according to the American Institute of CPAs. The pandemic brought an even greater punch, with accounting degrees slipping by as much as 7% between 2021–22 and 2022–23.
According to Logan Steele, an accounting professor at OSU, many young people have an outdated view of what an accountant actually does. No longer does the field spend its time performing manual calculations on paper spreadsheets; accountants have outsourced much of the mundane tasks to technology like AI, and they're now more focused on strategic decision-making.
However, the tide is beginning to turn, he says. Nearly every accounting graduate at OSU—98%—secure jobs in the field, he says, and their salaries are the highest in recorded history of any major program in the business school.
With Gen Zers increasingly preferring job security over job flexibility, the shift to accepting accounting as a promising career path may grow, especially with calls to decrease the barriers to becoming a certified personal accountant.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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