California doing away with Pathway 1

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a bill that will require all CPAs in California licensed after 2014 to meet a 150 unit college education requirement. Currently, under California's "Pathway 1", a candidate can be licensed with a minimum of 120 units, but must meet the 150 unit requirement for their license to be valid in other juristictions. Under the new legislation, all CPA's applying for a license as of 2014 will need 150 units and "Pathway 1" will no longer be an option. However, CPA licenses aquired before 2014 will still be valid.

The California State Society of CPAs reports:

"California should now be considered a substantially equivalent state, likely easing mobility for California CPAs providing services in other states that have adopted the new mobility provisions consistent with the Uniform Accountancy Act. Those provisions allow out-of-state CPAs to provide temporary services in those states without notifying the board of accountancy or paying a fee. This is a really big step for California CPAs."

Current college students should take this into consideration when planning out their goal to become a CPA upon graduation. To be licensed under this new legislation, they will likely need an additional amount of accounting or business units (according to CalCPA a "additional concentrated education related to increasing the competence of practitioners") and meet an ethics educational requirement. The good news is, students can still take CPA Review class for additional accounting credits and kill two birds with one stone.