CHICO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed Assembly Bill 1175 into law, significantly altering the educational requirements for aspiring certified public accountants in California. The new law reduces the minimum educational requirement to qualify for a CPA license from 150 college credits to a bachelor’s degree with 120 credits.
This change aims to alleviate financial pressures on students and families, said Saurav Dutta, director of the accounting program at Chico State University.
College is a lot of financial pressure on the student as well as on the family. So bringing it down to four years clearly evens the playing field and we’re hoping at least from a Cal State perspective that our enrollments in accounting programs would probably increase,” Dutta said.
Dutta, who also chairs the CalCPA Education Committee, played a key role in advocating for the bill. He noted that the process took nearly two years, during which Chico State began revising its curriculum in anticipation of the change.
Despite a shortage of CPAs in the U.S., particularly in California, the California Board of Accountancy did not state this was not the reason for the law change. However, David Hemphill, information planning officer for the board, acknowledged that the new law might help address barriers in the profession.
“There’s been studies that say that a good amount of the CPAs are approaching retirement age and so we will probably be losing the more experienced older CPAs in the next five to 10 years,” Hemphill said. The new requirements will take effect on Jan. 1, 2026, with both the old and new certification standards accepted until the end of 2028.
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