After 128 years as licensed professionals, accountants just got told they’re not in the same league as doctors and lawyers—at least according to the Department of Education. In this episode of The Accounting Podcast, hosts Blake Oliver and David Leary dig into what this means for the profession, along with news about AI taking over audits, big firms making embarrassing mistakes, and job seekers using dating apps to find work.
The Professional Status Problem
The Department of Education wants to strip accounting of its professional degree status, which would slash federal loan limits from $50,000 to $20,500 per year starting in 2026. This hits graduate accounting programs hard, especially when states are already rethinking the 150-hour CPA requirement.
The proposal came from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but as David points out, Congress didn’t actually specify which professions should qualify. “Isn’t Trump supposed to get rid of the deep state where these government agencies just make up the rules?” David asks. Instead, bureaucrats decided that medicine, dentistry, and law are professional programs, but accounting, nursing, architecture, and education aren’t.
AICPA President and CEO Mark Koziel calls this lack of recognition “common sense” to oppose, while NASBA President Daniel Dustin reminds everyone that CPAs have been licensed professionals since 1896—longer than many professions that made the cut.
During the livestream, one viewer made an interesting point: “If we are no longer professionals, that means we are entitled to overtime.” Blake expanded on this, noting that the Fair Labor Standards Act exempts professionals from overtime. Without that professional designation, Big Four firms might suddenly face huge labor costs for all those 50-60 hour weeks their CPAs work.
Students already questioning whether becoming a CPA is worth it will think twice when federal loan support drops by more than half.
AI Is Coming Fast, But Not Always Successfully
While regulators debate whether accountants are professionals, tech companies are betting billions on replacing them with AI. PwC announced it will have “full end-to-end AI automation for audits by 2026.” That’s not some far-off dream; they’re already using tools that auto-populate audit planning documents and analyze walkthroughs.
But the AI revolution has had some embarrassing failures. Deloitte produced a $1.6 million healthcare report for the Canadian government that included completely made-up academic citations. One fake paper was titled “The Cost Effectiveness of Local Recruitment and Retention Strategies for Health Workers in Canada,” which doesn’t exist. This came after a similar mess in Australia with over 20 fake citations.
“Deloitte’s website markets its AI and data teams,” David notes. “Deloitte should hire that team before they do any more AI work with clients.” The irony is that Deloitte sells itself as the company that helps others avoid exactly these AI mistakes.
Meanwhile, EY’s new leader Dante D’Egidio got promoted after cutting their audit deficiency rate from 46% to 9%. How? They fired clients, built support teams, and invested in technology. As Blake explains, “EY had too many clients and their staff and managers and partners were overworked. Quality went down.”
The OpenAI connection to accounting firms gets even stranger. OpenAI is investing in Thrive Capital, which owns Crete Professionals Alliance, a company that buys accounting firms and forces them to use AI technology. OpenAI will even send teams to work inside these firms. “This would be like Intuit buying accounting firms and making them buy QuickBooks,” David says. “People would lose their minds if that happened.”
The Job Market Reality Check
The economic news isn’t great. Small businesses lost 120,000 jobs in November while large companies only added 39,000. Three in ten companies plan to lay people off during the holidays. Americans are planning to spend $73 less on holiday shopping this year.
But there’s useful advice for job seekers. According to data Blake shared, 54% of workers got their current job through personal connections, while only 13% succeeded through job boards. Yet 60% of job seekers don’t use their network at all, mainly due to lack of confidence.
Here’s where it gets interesting: one-third of dating app users are now swiping for jobs, not dates. And it works: 88% made professional connections and 37% got job offers. “LinkedIn is the red water,” David observes. “You can’t stand out there. But if you say on a dating site, ‘Hey, I’m looking for a job,’ there’s nobody competing for jobs there.”
What’s Actually Changing
Beyond the headlines, several big shifts are happening. Xero is raising prices on developers specifically to stop AI models from accessing data. They’re banning developers from using their API to train machine learning models, the same thing Intuit did with QuickBooks.
Speaking of Intuit, the company now shares small business data with The Trade Desk, one of the world’s largest advertising networks. This lets advertisers target small businesses using QuickBooks data. “Your small business client data is now being sold to third party advertising networks,” David warns.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) quietly disbanded after cutting 300,000 government positions. They haven’t posted anything new since early October, and David suspects “Republicans are cutting away some of this bad press stuff.”
Looking Ahead
The hosts make some predictions for the coming year. David expects a partnership between OpenAI and the AICPA or CPA Academy by 2026 because “there’s just too much money” in CPE and they’re going to go after some of it. He also shared advice for young people: make a podcast interviewing professionals in your desired field. “If you’re in high school and want to become a dentist, make a podcast where you interview dentists. Even if nobody listens to your podcast, when you’re all said and done, you’ll know 40 dentists. And when you finish school, you probably have a good chance of getting a job.”
The accounting profession faces real challenges, from regulatory dismissal to AI automation to economic headwinds. But as Blake and David demonstrate each week, staying informed and adapting creatively matters more than protecting old definitions of professionalism.
Want to hear the full discussion, including details about PCAOB changes, tariff impacts, and why accounting firms might have to start paying overtime? Listen to the complete episode of The Accounting Podcast. You can even earn free CPE through the Earmark app while you listen.