How Are Your Graduates Doing? Do They Still Love You?

Abstract

Section 33 of the AACSB requirements for Specialized Accreditation of Accounting Programs requires that that each accounting program applying for specialized accreditation demonstrate its success with regard to the placement of students within three months of graduation and the career success of graduates at an appropriate later time (e.g., 5 or 10 years). The accounting program in a medium sized Midwestern university recently applied for “Specialized Accounting Accreditation” and found that only anecdotal data was available to satisfy this standard. In order to satisfy section 33 of the standards a questionnaire was developed and emailed to a list of accounting graduates. A list of 1,026 email addresses for accounting graduates was obtained from the alumni office and questionnaires were sent by email to each of the graduates. As expected, some of the email addresses were outdated and 269 were returned as undeliverable leaving 757 questionnaires delivered to accounting graduates. A total of 212 were returned for a 28% response rate with 103 (48%) requesting a copy of the results. The average age of the respondents was 44.2 years and the average graduation year was 1986, suggesting that the average age at graduation (21 years ago) was 23 years. The oldest graduate was 74 and the youngest was 22. More than one half of the graduates had obtained their first professional position before graduation and 90% had obtained a professional position within three months of graduation. Respondents were asked how many times they had changed companies in their careers and, remarkably, 23% had never changed companies. All of the graduates, except for one who had never changed companies, were satisfied with the progression of their careers. Another requirement of standard 33 is to demonstrate “career success of graduates at an appropriate later time (e.g., 5 or 10 years).” Graduates were asked if they were “satisfied with the progression of your career.” Remember, on average they had been graduated for about 12 years. Ninety seven percent indicated that they were satisfied with the progression of their careers. That indicates that they have achieved career success as they define success. Responses to whether graduates believe their education at Marshall adequately prepared them for their career were significantly (0.000) with whether they were satisfied with the progression of their career and with whether they would recommend the accounting program at Marshall to their children or friends (0.000 level). These relationships suggest that graduates are consistent in their approval and support for the accounting program.