Meet the Gen Z grads reviving accounting—colleges are reporting near-perfect placement rates at $80K starting salaries

Amid record anxiety about the future of work—and growing warnings about the potential erosion of white-collar careers—one unlikely field may be getting the last laugh. 

Accounting, long stereotyped as dull and tedious, has struggled for years to attract young talent. On top of a greying workforce, more than 300,000 accountants left the profession between 2019 and 2022, leaving firms scrambling to fill roles—and, in some cases, contributing to costly reporting errors.

Now, that narrative is starting to flip.

Lower barriers to entry, more conversations about burnout and work-life balance, and the growing use of artificial intelligence to handle repetitive tasks are helping reshape the profession’s image. At the same time, Gen Z workers—more pragmatic about job security and pay—are taking a fresh look.

The result: a quiet resurgence in accounting, with young professionals flowing into a field offering stability, strong demand, and increasingly, lucrative starting salaries.

Take 24-year-old Jack Blazevich. After finishing his degree at the University of Iowa in late 2024, he had a job offer lined up immediately as an assurance associate at PwC in Chicago, making nearly six figures. Though he chose to delay his start until September 2025 to pass all four sections of the CPA exam, it was not out of necessity, but because he could afford to.

“I have not talked to another accounting person who has a degree in accounting who cannot find a job,” Blazevich told Fortune.

Austin Price, working in technology risk assurance at EY, graduated from Brigham Young University last spring and had a similar experience.

“For many of my classmates, it felt like we were recruiting firms just as much as they were recruiting us,” Price said. “We had the luxury of choosing from multiple offers rather than worrying about whether we’d land a job........

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