Hans Kasper, MS-CPA, PS

What Does It Take To Be A CPA
 

Fifty years ago, all it took to be a CPA was to take a defined list of accounting classes, to pass the comprehensive CPA exam, to spend some time as an apprentice, and you were a CPA.

Over the years, things have changed.

While the defined list of accounting classes still exist, you now must have a five year degree in accounting--in most States, a Masters degree.  The amount of material that one must acquire has increased ten times over the last 25 years.  The exam consists of four sections that last over 2-1/2 days--two parts for accounting practice, one for business law, one for auditing, and one for accounting theory.  Some states have various additional parts.

The apprenticeship time now has standards as well which require that a certain level of work must be attained.  Then you can receive your license to practice.  But wait, there's more!

Once you have your license to practice, you must spend 40 hours per year in continuing education classes ($1,250) on a multitude of business subjects.  Furthermore, you are required to pay for a quality review of your work by the State Licensing Board every three years ($400).

Two years after graduation from college, I passed the CPA exam on my first try which was not bad since only 6% of the applicants nationwide do that.  I couldn't afford one of those fancy CPA exam review courses, so I bought the books and studied an hour on the train in the morning--I worked in downtown Chicago, an hour on the train at night, two hours at night at home, and four hours each day on the weekends for six months to take the exam.  I count this to be a total of 730 hours of study time over six months (28 hours per week) in addition to working a full-time job of 40 hours per week.

Well, that's all it takes to be a CPA.

 

Top of Page This page was last updated on 05/13/2010