Every business needs an accountant. The CPA is one of the most portable professional licenses in the country — it works in all 50 states with minor paperwork. Big 4 firms (Deloitte, PwC, EY, KPMG) hire aggressively straight out of college and train you to pass the exam.

The 150-hour rule. Most states require 150 semester hours to sit for the CPA — 30 more than a standard bachelor's. That means a 5th year or a master's in accounting (MAcc), typically $20–40k more in tuition. Without the CPA, your ceiling is closer to $75k.

Big 4 → industry is the classic play. Two or three years in public audit (brutal hours, 60–80/week in busy season), then jump to a controller or FP&A role at a private company for a 20–30% raise and saner hours. Financial managers clear $162k median.

AI is coming for the bottom of the stack — bookkeeping, payroll, basic tax prep. Clerical accounting is projected to shrink 5–17% over the next decade. The CPA and advisory work is safer — judgment, client trust, and signing off on the numbers are hard to automate.