Raising accounting awareness at NYC high schools

The Deloitte Foundation has provided a grant to school support agency Urban Assembly, which will coordinate with online education platform Outlier.org and New York City Public Schools to expand access to financial accounting education for high school students.

Leveraging Outlier.org's high school dual enrollment course experience, 400 selected juniors and seniors will have the opportunity to enroll in a year-long Intro to Financial Accounting course built to meet the standards of the city's public schools. The goal of the program, is to raise awareness about personal development and career opportunities within the accounting profession, as well as provide practical financial skills to succeed in the workplace. 

The Urban Assembly will help identify the best schools to offer the course. David Adams, the nonprofit's CEO, said Urban Assembly is currently examining how the program can be organized in a college and career sequence, how students can get class feedback and engage in materials, and how to ensure these courses can be embedded into what students are doing rather than having to build a new space. 

"We've always been very deeply invested in the notion of post-secondary access for young people," said Adams. "We have a mission of advancing economic and social mobility for young people by improving public education, so when I met folks at Outlier, I was very interested in understanding their approach to bringing high-quality, dual-enrollment and post-secondary credit-bearing courses to students here in New York City." 

The course offered by Outlier.org will count toward the participants' high school diploma and allow them to earn three college credits to transfer into an undergraduate degree from its accreditation partner, the University of Pittsburgh. Additionally, students will learn the basics of accounting, with additional classroom oversight from an on-site faculty member, and have access to 24/7 academic support and one-on-one tutoring via Outlier.org.

"This collaboration with Urban Assembly and New York City Public Schools directly furthers Outlier.org's mission to increase access to high-quality higher education," said Aaron Rasmussen, CEO and founder of Outlier.org, in a statement. "We look forward to piloting this program in New York so that it can be replicated in school districts across the country."

Adams said this initiative is part of a broader effort to diversify the accounting pipeline and create a more inclusive environment for underrepresented populations of students. According to the AICPA 2021 Trends Report, only 2% of CPAs are Black and 5% are Hispanic, despite significant job opportunities across the sector. Because there is such a small number of accountants of color, Adams explained that students from underrepresented backgrounds are generally less likely to be exposed to the field. 

As a result, Urban Assembly created an early career and college awareness program to expand students' understanding of post-secondary opportunities, from certificates to four-year degrees. Adams said it's beneficial for students to have an idea of what they want to do before they graduate.

"We know there's a labor shortage in accounting, so this really reflects a great opportunity for the industry and the educational pipeline to work together to solve problems, which is why the Urban Assembly exists," said Adams. "I think this initiative is a unique reflection of our interest in diversifying the pipeline, and maybe this kind of solution where organizations come together to make it work can be an example for other fields facing shortages."

With an average number of 536 students per school, Adams said New York City has a relatively small school model. But while smaller school size has been demonstrated to increase academic outcomes and improve school climate, Adams said it can constrain students' options in terms of post-secondary outcomes. For example, the Harbor School, which is a nonprofit entity similar to the Urban Assembly, has focused all seven of its Career Technical Education pathways, which allow students to personalize their education based on career interests, on marine life.

Without diminishing the excellence of the services provided by the school, Adams notes that this kind of framework does not offer many alternatives for students who may not want to pursue a single field. Consequently, Urban Assembly has been considering how to expand available opportunities for students while keeping the benefits of small New York schools, and Adams said this collaboration with Outlier.org appeared to be the perfect solution.

"Kelly Richmond Pope, who will be teaching the Intro to Financial Accounting course, is one of the top instructors in the field, and in the current accounting teaching shortage, the question is always how to get the top folks in front of the top students, so that we can inspire them to go on a career pathway that's going to provide economic and social mobility," said Adams. "It's really hard to do that in 2023, and yet we need to make sure that those students are highly educated and ready to contribute to their community."